SUCCESSORS OF ROME:FRANCIA, 447-Present

Kings and Emperors of the Franks,
France, Burgundy, Italy, and Germany

Introduction

After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and the occupation of much of Gaul by the Franks, Roman power never returned far enough to come into conflict with the Frankish kingdom (except, to an extent, in the South of Italy). Instead, as the advent of Islâm permanently ended the possibility of further Roman revival, when Pope Stephen III met Pepin the Short (753) and obtained help against the Lombards, we get a passing of the torch from Constantinople to the Franks. By 774, the Franks were virtually the only organized Christian kingdom between Islâm in Spain, the pagan powers to the east and north, and Romania -- the remaining Roman Empire, now Greek in character -- to the southeast. The core of Christian Western Europe thus became Francia. While forms of this name, from Francia in Spanish to France in French, have settled on what was originally West Francia -- Francia Occidentalis -- German allows a differentiation, with Frankenreich, the "Kingdom of the Franks," for the full extent of the Carolingian state, and Frankreich for the modern France. In English, where "France" is also used for modern France, "Francia" may be used without ambiguity for Frankenreich and for the greater Periphery of Francia.

Indeed, to many beyond Francia the Franks now were all the Western European states as far as ran the writ of the Pope and the use of the Latin language. In Greek, the Franks are the , Phrangoi. Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus even refers to the empire of Charlemagne as , "Great Francia." Liutprand of Cremona (c.920-972) says that in 968 the Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas "made fun of the Franks -- under which name he understood both the Latins and the Germanic [peoples]," Ex Francis, quo nomine tam Latinos quam Teutones comprehendit, ludum habuit [Liudprandi Legatio, XXXIII, 25-26]. The words for "European" in Arabic, al-'Ifranj, , "the Franks," 'Ifranjî, , "a Frank, Frankish, European," and Persian, farangi, , preserve the word -- as does even Thai, , fàràng, and Laotian, , farang or falang, "foreign, European, Caucasian" or just "French." In these terms, it should be remembered that Muslim sources distinguished between Franks and , ar-Rûm, i.e. Romans -- the Christians (such as Constantine VII and Nicephorus Phocas) of the surviving Roman Empire. But as Romania faded from memory, all Europeans became "Franks." The word "Frank" even appears in Ming China, with the arrival of the Portuguese, as . Initially, Christians and Jews coming to China where grouped with the , meaning Turks, Uighurs, and Chinese Muslims.

In European languages, "frank" can mean open, forthright, and sincere, i.e. with the noble qualities of the Frank. It also can mean "free," as in the "franking" privilege of sending free mail, or as in "franchise," which is the grant of some privilege or immunity. "Frankish" -- Latin "Franciscus," masculine, and "Francisca," feminine -- also occurs as a very common given name in Western European languages, from "Francesco/Francesca" in Italian,

Europa, c. 800 AD

Francia

Romania

Franks

Romans

Latins

Greeks(Armenians,Vlachs, etc.)

[Holy] Roman Emperor

Emperor ofthe Romans

Rome

Constantinople

Pope

Patriarchs ofConstantinople,Alexandria, Antioch,& Jerusalem

"Francisco/Francisca" in Spanish, and "François/Françoise" in French, to "Francis/Frances" in English, etc. The English abbreviation for "Francis" is, indeed, "Frank" -- a name that has retained a strong masculine tone even when "Francis" itself has begun to seem effeminate (probably because "Francis" and "Frances" have an identical modern pronunciation).

In two of the Star Trek series, Star Trek, the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, we encounter extraterrestrials called the "Ferengi," a word which looks like the Hindi, , version of the Persian . Since the Ferengi are obsessed with profit and under no scruple to only obtain it honestly, the use of the term may refect the leftist and anti-capitalist ideology of the Star Trek series -- not to mention an attendant cultural self-hatred on the part of the producers or writers.

Comparing Francia of Charlemagne's day to Romania, i.e. the remaining Roman Empire around Constantinople, usually called the "Byzantine" Empire by historians, it is noteworthy that while the cultural and religious center of the West is at Rome, that City would never again be the actual political capital of Western Europe. Indeed, the Popes ruled their own little domain, the Papal States, and prevented the unification of Italy until the 19th century. While they then wielded much influence in the West, and they wanted to install and dispose of secular rulers at their whim, it was only rarely that Papal political power amounted to much. Although it was sometimes used to humble even the Kings of England and France, and the German Emperor, its power drained quickly when overused. After Philip IV of France sent a gang of thuggish operatives to kidnap and rough up Pope Boniface VIII in his own palace, the Papal leviathan seemed to deflate like a punctured balloon. Meanwhile, Constantinople was a real capital, with resident Emperors of legally absolute power. The Western Emperor, elected by German princes who became increasingly sovereign, the non-resident ruler of increasingly detached and uncontrollable states like Italy and Burgundy,

and only properly made Emperor by Papal coronation, with all its expressed and implied conditions, not surprisingly was soon shown to be wielding a fatally compromised and fading form of power.

In the treatment here, "Francia" will mean all of Europe that in the Mediaeval period was subject to the Roman Catholic Church, with its Latin liturgy, headed by the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. (The Schism of 1054 separated the Latin Church from the Orthodox Churches of the East.) Since the Pope retained the right to crown Emperors in the area subject to his Church, the Emperors in Charlemagne's line retained an implicit primacy, if not sovereignty, over all of Roman Catholic Europe, however little actual authority they may have exercised.

For many centuries, Latin was the principal, sometimes the only, written language over an area, "greater" Francia, that came to stretch from Norway to Portugal and from Iceland to Catholic parts of the Ukraine. A Swede like Karl von Linné would be known by a Latinized name as Carolus Linnaeus, a Pole like Mikolaj Kopernik as Nicolaus Copernicus, and an Italian like Christoforo Columbo (Cristóbal Colón in Spanish) as Christophorus(-er) Columbus. These men were even, significantly, figures getting into the modern period, not of the deep Middle Ages. One consequence of the dominance of Latin was the universal use of the Latin alphabet, and the borrowing of Latin vocabulary for vernacular languages from Norwegian to Hungarian. In an age when alphabets went with religions, the only exception to this was the use of the Hebrew alphabet to write Spanish (Ladino) and German (Yiddish) by European Jews. Islâm was not tolerated in Mediaeval Francia, except in unusual circumstances, mainly in Spain and Sicily. The alphabet that had been developed to write Gothic disappeared with its language. The old Runic alphabet also largely disappeared with the Christianization of Germany and Scandinavia, though its values were not forgotten. The use of Latin and its alphabet contrasts with the official use of Greek and its alphabet in Romania (together with other special alphabets, like Armenian) and the use of the Cyrillic alphabet in Russia. Today, the cultural predominance of Europe has led to the use of the Latin alphabet for many languages around the world, including Indonesian/Malaysian (Malay), Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Samoan, languages in Africa like Swahili, and many others. World languages with their own traditional writing, like Chinese and Japanese, use Romanization extensively, both officially and unofficially.

The use of the Latin alphabet in Francia often goes along with languages, the Romance languages, that are themselves descended from Latin, like Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. On the other hand, Francia was the result of the West Roman Empire collapsing under the inroads of Germans and then of a new identity being formulated by the Germanic Franks. Even the major wars of the 20th century can be thought of as continuing conflict along the Romance/Germanic boundary in the heart of Francia. The balance of power then, however, ended up being determined by another Germanic speaking power, England, coming in on the side of Romance speaking France. Meanwhile, the language family that was displaced by the Romans in Gaul and by the Angles and Saxons in Britain persists in the "Celtic Fringe" of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, including Brittany, which was actually colonized with refugees from Celtic Britain. Welsh betrays its heritage as the language of Roman Britain with Latin days of the week and other borrowings. In the East, the Slavic languages represent another boundary productive of conflict. After the initial migration of Slavic speakers that pushed Germans behind the Elbe and replaced large areas of indigenous languages in the Balkans, German speakers moved steadily east until World War II, after which the Russians expelled many Germans and returned the boundary to about where it was in the 12th century. Between the northern and southern Slavs, however, is a Romance speaking remnant in the Balkans, Romania, and the Hungarians, who were the only steppe people to first invade Europe but then settle down and even retain their linguistic identity, despite their country often being called after the earlier and unrelated Huns. The only other languages in Francia related to Hungarian, which is not an Indo-European language, are Finnish and Estonian, which are probably at the western end of a very ancient distribution of the Uralic languages. The language that has the best claim to being the autochthonous language of Francia is Basque, which has no established affinities with any other language in the world and whose people have been determined by genetic studies to have been in the area since the Pleistocene. On the southern edge of the map is a little bit of Francia, Malta, where a language is spoken, Maltese, that is descended from Arabic and so unrelated to other modern languages in Francia. This is a remnant of the Aghlabid conquest of Sicily, although now the Maltese have long been Catholic, and the language is written, of course, in the Latin alphabet.

The orange area on the map above merits special notice. Lithuanian and Lativian are the remaining Baltic languages. They are more closely related to the Slavic languages than to the others, but are significant for their conservatism. Lithuanian is the only surviving Indo-European language with a tone accent. Today, a tone accent is most conspicuous in Chinese. Of early Indo-European languages, tones are attested only in the similarly conservative Classical Greek and Sanskrit -- indeed, the accents used for several purposes by many languages, the ácute, gràve, and circûmflex, originally wrote the tones of Greek. Historically, Lithuania holds the prize as the last country in Europe to become Christian, not definitively converting until the Grand Duke Jagiello (1377-1434). Meanwhile, for a good two centuries it had played the role of a frontier, and a wild one, between Catholic Europe in the West and both Orthodoxy Muscovy and the Mongol Golden Horde in the East. In converting to Catholicism and marrying the Queen of Poland, Jagiello joined Lithuania to the West. In doing so, however, he defeated what had previously represented the frontier of the West, the Teutonic Knights. The Knights had occupied the territory of the Prussians and converted them, while their compatriots, the Livonian Knights, had occupied the territory of the Latvians and converted them. The Prussian language was also part of the Baltic group, but eventually the Prussians themselves became German speaking. Today, the original land of Prussia is divided between Poland and Russia, with most of the German speakers, including those who would have been ethnic Prussians, expelled. Modern Latvia, like Lithuania, has at long last again become independent.

The original core of Francia, the Frankish Kingdom that came to dominate the West under Charlemagne, can be identified as those areas upon whose ruler the Pope at one time or another conferred a crown as the Roman Emperor. Part of the Mediaeval theory of Papal power came to include this ultimate authority to create and legitimate secular authority. Outlying areas, Spain, Britain, Scandinavia, etc., are considered separately as the Periphery of Francia. Charlemagne himself ruled modern France, northern Italy, and most of modern Germany. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, the imperial title was fitfully conferred on Kings of Italy, and then lapsed entirely in 922. The descent of King Otto I of Germany into Italy ushered in new combinations of territory and a new line of Emperors, as the Pope crowned Otto in 962.

The "Empire" came to be regarded as consisting of four crowns: (1) East Francia, or Germany, (2) Lombardy (the "Iron Crown"), or Italy, (3) Rome, and, after 1032, (4) Burgundy. Lorraine, which had been a separate kingdom in the inheritance of Charlemagne, soon become part of the system of "Stem Duchies" in Germany. Most of the Stem Duchies, like Saxony, Franconia, and Bavaria, corresponded to preexisting German tribes. The title dux ("leader"), which was the Roman title of a frontier military commander, thus achieves its elevated Mediaeval meaning as a feudal title in relation to these units. A duke is only inferior to a sovereign prince. The next highest title, marquis or margrave (Markgraf), signified the count (comes, Graf, or "earl" in English) of a march (Mark) territory. The marches were border territories that involved a great deal of fighting. In Charlemagne's day, that included marches in Spain contesting the Islâmic advance. Later, the German marches north and south of Bohemia extended German settlement far to the east. Brandenburg became the most famous northern march, remaining a margravate until becoming the Kingdom of Prussia. Austria (Österreich, the "eastern realm") was the most famous southern march, becoming a duchy, then the only "archduchy," and finally an empire.

As the authority of the German Emperors declined, and that of the Kings of France grew, the "Middle Kingdom" (Francia Media) of Lorraine, Burgundy, and Italy began to pass either from German to French control (Upper Lorraine, Burgundy) or from German control to separate status (Lower Lorraine, i.e. the Netherlands and Belgium, and Italy). This process continued well into the modern period, when we see a multiplication of kingdoms, reaching five in Germany (not counting Bohemia) and two in Lower Lorraine. The Dukes of Savoy, beginning with a county in Burgundy, acquired more land and a capital (Turin) in Italy, named their new Kingdom after Sardinia and ultimately succeeded as the modern Kings of Italy. After Mussolini conquered Ethiopia in 1936, one King of Italy was briefly, and fatally, associated with this as the Emperor of Ethiopia. Without otherwise going outside of Francia, we certainly see enough emperors.

The Holy Roman Emperors, especially after the title became nearly hereditary with the Hapsburgs, became less and less concerned with confirming their crown with the Pope. The last time the Pope was called upon to crown an Emperor was when Napoleon decided to reclaim the title for the Western Franks, the French (and himself), in 1804. Napoleon knew better, however, than to allow that the Pope really had the kind of authority that the coronation of Charlemagne implied: Napoleon took the crown from the Pope's hands and crowned himself. The Hapsburgs were not going to be left behind by this: They elevated Austria to the status of Empire without any help from the Pope -- apparently on the principle that they had a right to the status to which they had become accustomed. Napoleon then abolished the Holy Roman Empire, leaving a French and an Austrian Emperor in Francia. After Napoleon's fall, the French title was later revived by Napoleon III, but then in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War and his fall, Otto von Bismarck decided to transfer the dignity to a newly reunited Germany, with the King of Prussia as a new, entirely German and not even Catholic, German Emperor, ruling over Prussia and the three other remaining kingdoms (Saxony, Bavaria, and Württemberg -- Hanover had been absorbed into Prussia).

Except for the brief episode with Mussolini, emperors vanished from Francia, and from Russia, in the Götterdämmerung of World War I. This did not mean, unfortunately, the immediate triumph of democracy and liberty. Instead, the conservative oppression of regimes like Austria, which were said to be "despotism tempered by inefficiency," was followed by the far more oppressive, sinister, and murderous "evil empires" of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, both founded on 20th century totalitarian, collectivist ideology -- though Hitler did like to think of his regime as a "Third Reich" continuing the German empires of the past. Lenin and Stalin had no use for such historical romance, though their power would have been the envy of any Tsar and did continue police state devices begun by the Tsars. It is post-Communist Russia, struggling with corrupt democracy and a struggling economy, that now may be the most susceptible to Fascist romances about the Tsars.

The development of the core of Francia can be represented in this flow chart. Of the eight modern states of the region (not counting Monaco, San Marino, and Liechtenstein), France has the most continuous historical tradition. The Mediaeval Empire at one point drew in all of Francia Media, except for the French Duchy of Burgundy, but then slowly broke up. Parts of Lower Lorraine, assembled by the Dukes of Burgundy, have come down as the Low Countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The original Kingdom of Burgundy, giving rise to Switzerland and Savoy, has mostly fallen to France, while Savoy went on to unite Italy. The principal German speaking states left over from the Empire, Prussia and Austria, assembled their own Empires, leading to the reduced modern republics of Germany and Austria, while Upper Lorraine is now entirely in the hands of France. Each kingdom and empire here is indicated with a crown, as in the Francia maps above. The colors here more or less match the color of the corresponding table of rulers and, to an extent, the map colors. This chart illustrates well, like the "early Mediaeval" core of Francia map above, the fact that for a long time there was only one Empire, Rome. France (i.e. Napoleon) and Austria broke that understanding, followed by the German Empire, which, like Napoleonic France, saw itself following Charlemagne. The "Third Reich," of course, had no Emperor. The only Empires external to Francia evident here are Mexico and that of Italy in Ethiopia. Mexico, however, was not a European possession, except that French troops supported the Emperor Maximilian, brother of the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. When the troops withdrew, he was overthrown and killed.

The sources for all these tables are varied and now sometimes hard to keep track of, since my own notes made from years ago do not always indicate their origin. References and difficulties in specific areas, as with Flanders, are usually discussed at the appropriate place. Here I will mention a few general sources. Some of the earliest lists are from An Encyclopedia of World History; Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged, compiled and edited by William L. Langer [Houghton, Mifflin, Company; the Riverside Press, Boston, 1940, 1948, 1952, 1960]. This one volume compendium I borrowed from a high school friend in the Sixties and recently consulted it again when it turned out that a colleague at Valley College had a copy. Amazon.com has now found a used copy for me after some months of searching. At lot of this, however, now looks a bit dated. That drawback is remedied by a new edition by Peter N. Stearns, The Encyclopedia of World History; Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged [Sixth Edition, Houghton Miffilin Company, 2001]. While Stearns' version has much of the genealogical information, and more, of the original, it does seems to be missing the chart of the Capetian descent of the Bourbons which Langer had -- it also drops rather than updates the lists of British Prime Ministers, French Presidents and Premiers, and Italian Prime Ministers that Langer included. This Encyclopedia is to be distinguished from the Encyclopedia of World History, by Patrick K. O'Brien et al. [George Philip Limited, Facts on File, 2000], which is arranged alphabetically -- including various lists of world leaders such as were dropped from the Stearns Encyclopedia. Other more recent information and extensive genealogies are in The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume II, c.700-c.900 [Cambridge University Press, 1995] and The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume III, c.900-c.1024 [Timothy Reuter, editor, Cambridge, 1999]. The most comprehensive lists of rulers I have found in print are in Kingdoms of Europe, by Gene Gurney [Crown Publishers, New York, 1982]. Gurney has some errors and obscurities, but I have not found any other work that has put so much together in one volume. I have also found a nice genealogical presentation, a chart, Kings & Queens of Europe, compiled by Anne Tauté [University of North Carolina Press, 1989]. This is not as comprehensive as Gurney, but seems to exhibit more careful scholarship.

Among prose histories, one which is of the most longstanding value has been a textbook I originally had for a class in Beirut, Medieval Europe, by Martin Scott [Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., London, 1967]. It is hard to know what other such subsequent books to list. A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman [Ballantine Book, 1978] is a marvelous history of the 14th century, a period not otherwise noted in most surveys except for the Black Death. Otherwise, some of the most comprehensive treatments and enjoyable historical reading I have ever had involved a couple different history of Europe series that used to be published by Harper Torchbooks. In one series, I had several of the books as textbooks in classes: Reformation Europe, 1517-1559, by G.R. Elton [Harper Torchbooks, 1963], Europe Divided, 1559-1598, by J.H. Elliott [1968], Europe of the Ancient Régime, 1715-1783, by David Ogg, and Revolutionary Europe, 1783-1815, by George Rudé [this was in the Harper series, but I have a British edition published as the "Fontana History of Europe," the same as the Harper books, Fontana Library, Collins, 1964]. Of another Harper Torchbook series, "The Rise of Modern Europe," I had a couple of volumes in classes but then took some pains to acquire many of the rest. These include, The Age of the Baroque, 1610-1660, by Carl J. Friedrich [Harper Torchbooks, 1962], The Triumph of Science and Reason, 1660-1685, by Frederick L. Nussbaum [1962], The Emergence of the Great Powers, 1685-1715, by John B. Wolf [1962], The Quest for Security, 1715-1740, by Penfield Roberts [1963], Competition for Empire, 1740-1763, by Walter L. Dorn [1963], From Despotism to Revolution, 1763-1789, by Leo Gershoy [1963], A Decade of Revolution, 1789-1799, by Crane Brinton [1963], Europe and the French Imperium, 1799-1814, by Geoffrey Bruun [1965], Reaction and Revolution, 1814-1832, by Frederick B. Artz [1963], Political and Social Unpheaval, 1832-1852, by William L. Langer [1969], Realism and Nationalism, 1852-1871, by Robert C. Binkley [1963], and A Generation of Materialism, 1871-1900, by Carlton J.H. Hayes [1963]. All by different authors, it can be imagined that the literary quality of these books is uneven. The Age of the Baroque, 1610-1660 and The Emergence of the Great Powers, 1685-1715 are very fine books. Many were also written even a couple of decades before the Sixties editions that I have. Some of the material might therefore be a little dated now; but there is also the virtue that these histories are going to be largely innocent of the brainless Marxism and the kinds of politically correct "race, class, and gender" analyses that have become popular in "post modern" academia.

On the internet, Brian Tompsett's Royal and Noble genealogy is invaluable, and the lists of the Dukes of Lorraine and of several other German dynasties were originally compiled using little else. The only drawbacks are that (1) Thompsett's lists are, indeed, genealogical, which means it is sometimes hard to find unrelated rulers in a succession, and (2) the entries are very summary, without any explanation of may be happening as, for instance, domains are divided among multiple heirs. Some of these drawbacks can now be remedied with Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. Gordon's chronological lists are no help with genealogy, or with events, but do give all of the successors. Gordon also has a large bibliographical page. Now there is also WW-Person, A WWW Data base of European nobility, which combines genealogy with chronological lists. This site, however, sometimes returns blank pages, and not every chronological page includes a link to the corresponding genealogical page, which means a great deal of hunting around is sometimes necessary to find the genealogical connection, and usually there is even less in the way of additional information on a page than in Thompsett. Nevertheless, this site does have genealogy that is missing with Thompsett.

The maps are originally those of Tony Belmonte, edited to eliminate references to "Byzantium" and with corrections and additions. Tony's historical atlas (with Tony) has disappeared from the Web. It was painstakingly reassembled by Jack Lupic, but then his site has disappeared also. Corrections and additions are based on The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History (Colin McEvedy, 1961), The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History (Colin McEvedy, 1992), The Penguin Atlas of Modern History (to 1815) (Colin McEvedy, 1972), The Penguin Atlas of Recent History (Europe since 1815) (Colin McEvedy, 1982), The Anchor Atlas of World History, Volume I (Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann, Ernest A. Menze, and Harald and Ruth Bukor, 1974), The Anchor Atlas of World History, Volume II (Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann, Ernest A. Menze, and Harald and Ruth Bukor, 1978), The Times Concise Atlas of World History (edited by Geoffrey Barraclough & Geoffrey Parker, Hammond Inc., Times Books Ltd., 1982, 1988, 1993, 1996), and various prose histories. My graphics programs do not seem to be quite as sophisticated as Tony's, so maps I have modified may not look as professionally done as his originals.

The flags are also based on several sources. Flags Through the Ages and Across the World, by Whitney Smith [McGraw-Hill, 1975], is a splendid book, as is The International Flag Book in Color, by Christian Fogd Pedersen, Wilhelm Petersen, and Lieu.-Commander John Bedells, Hon. F.H.S., R.N. [William Morrow & Company, 1971]. These books were originally recommended to me by Professor Norman Martin, for whom I was a teaching assistant at the University of Texas. Besides being a professor of philosophy (logic), computer science, and electrical engineering, Professor Martin was expertly knowledgeable about flags and military uniforms. More recent developments are covered by Flags, The Illustrated Identifier to flags of the world, by Eve Devereux [Chartwell Books, 1994, 1998]. I have been unable to reproduce some flags with complete accuracy, given the limitations of my graphics programs and artistic ability. On the Internet, almost all flags can be found at Flags of the World, with considerable history and discussion of each.

The division of the Kingdom, in time honored Germanic fashion, between the four sons of Clovis, fragmented Frankish power and slowed its growth. In the table above, sub-domains are abbreviated, "Aus" for Austrasia, "Neu" for Neustria, and "Bur" for Burgundy. After the conquest of the Thuringians (531), the Burgundians (534), Provence (536), and the Bavarians (555), there was little expansion of the Kingdom for the remaining period of the Merovingian Dynasty. As external threats appeared, like the inroads of Islâm from Spain, power began to pass to the Mayors of the Palace like Charles Martel, who retroactively can be called "Carolingian," though this, of course, is to name them after Charlemagne, who hasn't lived yet.

Since the Merovingian dynasty had been hallowed by time, and the kingship was consequently not thought of as elective, a change of dynasty was not a step to be undertaken lightly -- but the last King is so ephemeral that it is not even certain who his parents were. Beginning as full pagans, the Merovingians maintained an aura of the numinous and divine. They wore their hair long, and this became a characteristic of their status. The Carolingians had a great deal to overcome in replacing them. Getting the sanction of the Pope helped, though this might dangerously imply a Papal derivation of royal authority.

Even if Jesus was married and had children, it is not obvious why this would prevent him from being the Savior and the Son of God -- though when Brown says that Jews in his day were expected to marry, this is false, since we know of virtual monasticism among the Essenes. The evidence for any of this, however, is slim to none; and Brown's clear ignorance of the Jewish sects and their practices at the time of Jesus does not inspire confidence.

Part of the argument is the importance given to Mary Magdalene in the Gnostic Gospels, but then their interpretation is ambiguous and disputed -- and they mention no children. The Merovingian Kingdom itself is fully part of the Dark Ages. Its history is thinly documented and obscure. Where the "bloodline" legend depends on Merovingian marriages, the marriages are in fact very poorly attested. While there may be some historical information on descendants of the Merovingians, people who would continue the "bloodline," I haven't noticed any in reputable sources.

This is especially striking in relation to the Carolingians. The long years of association between the Merovingian Kings and the Carolingian Mayors of the Palace should have resulted in some intermarriage -- it would have at any other point in European history -- but I do not see anything of the sort in, for instance, the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte. The absence of information, of course, makes it possible to claim anything, or to imagine possibilities and become convinced of their truth. If the Merovingians were indeed the family of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, it does seem like they should have behaved in some way different from other Dark Age German tribal rulers. It isn't discernable that they did. They were better at killing and conquest (for a while), but this might not be the difference we would expect.

The "bloodline" legend continues with the idea that Godfrey (or Godefroi) of Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade and first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, was himself a descendant of the Merovingians, specifically of Dagobert II. Brown even identifies Godfrey as a "King of France." Unfortunately for our confidence in Brown's scholarship, already shaken, Godfrey was not a King of France (that would have been the Capetian Philip I), simply the Duke of Lower Lorraine. There is no evidence that Godfrey was of royal descent, or, for that matter, that there were any descendants of Dagobert II at all -- the Merovingian succession passes to his cousins, even as some writers remarkably seem to think he was the last Merovingian.

All in all, much of the "bloodline" legend, including unattested genealogies of the Merovingians, apparently is the fraudulent invention of a single crackpot French anti-Semite and monarchist named Pierre Plantard (d.2000), who finally had to admit before a French judge in 1993 that he had made it all up. The implication that the "bloodline" descendants ought to be the Kings of France is perfectly consistent with this, and perhaps Plantard expected himself to be recognized as a Merovingian, and to be offered the Throne, which he would then humbly accept. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the wild claims now have taken on a life of their own, with the eagerness of the modern atheist and conspiracy theorist to discredit all things Christian. At the same time, this has all made the fortune of Dan Brown, whose financies suffer not the least from the problems with his stories.

When the Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel defeated an incursion from Islâmic Spain at Poitiers in 732, it was clear that the Frankish kings had become weak beyond recall. All that was needed was a source of legitimacy for a change of dynasty, which in any case was effected in 751. The legitimacy, as it happened, was conveniently provided by the Pope. Appeals from Pope Gregory III to Charles Martel himself for help against the Lombards in 739 and 740 had gone unheeded; but when Pope Stephen III travelled to meet Pepin III in 753-754, he procured Pepin's promise of help and sealed the pact by formally anointing Pepin King of the Franks. Pepin defeated the Lombards in 754 and 756 and delivered to the Pope, over the protests of Roman officials from Constantinople, the "Exarchate of Ravenna" corridor from Rome to Ravenna. This established the form, or at least claims, of the Papal States for the next 1100 years.

The Lombards would not stay defeated, and Pepin's son Charles eventually had to conquer them and annex their kingdom (774). His conquest of the pagan Saxons (782-804) and expansion in other directions began to turn the Frankish Kingdom into a superstate. This gave Charles and the Pope ideas, especially when the Empress Irene deposed and blinded her son, Constantine VI, in 797, assuming sole rule: the first time a woman ruled Romania in her own name. The Westerners were little disposed to regard a woman as a legitimate emperor -- women could not rule in the law of the Salic Franks (hence the "Salic Law" against female succession). So, on Christmas Day in the year 800 (this may actually mean 799 -- when 800 began is a little fluid), the Pope crowned Charles Roman Emperor, taking for himself a role and an authority that he had never had anything to do with before. In taking the title from the Pope, Charles (now "the Great," "Carolus Magnus," or "Charlemagne") fatefully assumed both pretensions, to Empire, and an obligation, to Popes, that would prove a source of endless dispute, grief, and hybris in the future.

In the tables of rulers an icon is used of an imperial crown with a yellow nimbus: . This indicates Emperors crowned by the Pope. This is not used in the genealogical tables until the German Emperors, since it is only then that we begin to speak of "Emperors" even if they were never crowned by the Pope. This is discussed below. While Charlemagne probably was not going to think of the Imperial dignity as contingent on the approval of the Pope, this is how the matter developed, in line with increasing claims of Papal authority.

While Charlemagne himself supposedly never quite learned to read and write, there was a revival of learning at his Court, enough to earn the characterization "Carolingian Renaissance." One permanent effect that could not have been anticipated at the time is that when printing was invented centuries later in the actualRenaissance (1440's), the uncial characters written in the Carolingian period would be adopted as the font for lower case letters (minuscules) in printing, while block Latin characters became upper case letters (majuscules). Written characters as they actually developed during the Middle Ages are now dismissed as "Gothic" and used only for special purposes -- although they were widely used in Germany (Fraktur) until recently.

While aspects of the Carolingian Renaissance look ahead to the future, other things remind us that the decline from Rome hasn't quite bottomed out yet. One of these was the coinage introduced by Charlemagne. This consisted of two coins, a silver denarius and half-denarius, the obolus -- which see at left in their later, British, copper versions. The most obvious and important thing about this, symbolic and substantive, is that both gold and copper coinage is missing. The lack of the former means that large capital transactions don't exist, and of the latter that a cash economy simply doesn't exist either for the daily life of most people. A cash economy, indeed, had been collapsing, in a wave spreading from West to East, since the 5th century. Nevertheless, German states, like Lombardy, had maintained a gold coinage. What finally drove things down to the bottom was the Arab Conquest, which crippled or destroyed trade in the Mediterranean, as this had been carried on by Romania. In Charlemagne's world, Francia was cut off from most international trade, in an economy of subsistent agriculture and taxes in produce and labor. Neither serious nor trivial money was necessary. With Charlemagne's coins, the denarius borrows its name from the silver coin of the early Empire, which had long been debased to nothing, while the obolus was originally a division of the Athenian drachma. The standard gold coin, the "dollar of the Middle Ages," had been the Roman solidus, which was minted without debasement from the days of Constantine until the reign of the Emperor Michael IV, in Constantinople, in the 11th century. There were supposed to be 12 denarii of Charlemagne for one gold solidus from Romania (i.e. 12d = 1s, twelve pence to a shilling). A practical gold coinage would not be revived in Francia until the 13th century.

Athough Charlemagne's obolus was soon forgotten, the denarius long survived, as the denier in France until the French Revolution. A different word was used in the Germanic languages, penny in English and Pfennig in German. The English penny was the direct descendant of the Carolingian denarius until, of all things, 1970. The character, history, and values of these coins and their successors is examined elsewhere.

The breakup of Charlemagne's kingdom was fateful to the history of Western Europe for centuries to come. Although soon surrounded by independent Christian states, in Britain and Ireland to the northwest, Spain in the southwest, Hungary and Poland in the east, and the Scandinavian states in the north (i.e. the Periphery of Francia), the Frankish kingdoms remained the central tentpole (we might even say the axis mundi) of European politics (axis Franciae). As neat halves of Charlemange's empire eventually formed, France in the West and Germany in the East, the stage for the greatest battles of modern war in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries would be set along the seam, from Nieuwpoort (1600) to Ramillies (1706), Waterloo (1815), Verdun (1916), and the Bulge (1944).

Carolingians, Empire & Italy

Louis Ithe Pious

France, Italy,Germany, Burgundy,& Empire,814-840

Pepin

Italy,781-810

Bernard

Italy,810-818

Lothar I

Italy, Burgundy, Lorraine,& Empire, 840-855

Vikings appear in the Seine, 841;sack of Ostia & Rome by the Aghlabids, 846

Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious, faced a problem that ultimately had not existed for his father: multiple sons who, in the typical Germanic fashion, expected an equal division of the realm.
That had been disastrous for Merovingian power, and Louis wished to introduce, if not the ideal primogeniture, at least a division that would leave his eldest son, the prospective Emperor Lothar, with the predominant share. This was not accepted in good grace, and Louis did not possess the kind of forceful or ruthless personality that could have put the Fear of God into the younger sons. Indeed, despite his "piety," Louis was self-indulgent. Nor did Lothar possess the kind of ability that could have dominated his brothers. The death of Louis then set off a fraternal war that was especially unhelpful as the Vikings were beginning to appear from the North and the Arabs were becoming active by sea in the South.

Strasbourg itself, in Alsace, was Argentaria in Latin, but Nithard notes that it is already being called Strazburg ("town," burg, at the "[cross-]roads," Modern German Straße). Charles' men spoke a language Nithard calls the Romana lingua, the "Roman tongue." This looks like a remarkable combination of Latin and some sort of Proto-French. Now it gets called "Gallo-Romance," and isn't quite Old French yet. Louis' men spoke Old High German, which Nithard calls the Teudisca lingua. The -isc ending makes adjectives in Germanic languages. It has become -ish in Modern English and -isch in Modern German. Teud- means "people" and Teudisca is semantically equivalent to Deutsch in Modern German. However, the consonants are not those of High German. The word was þeoda (theoda) in Old English, and the language of the original Franks, Old Franconian, would have had those consonants. So Nithard's version looks like a Latinization of that, perhaps influenced by Latin Teutones. By now, Charles and Louis certainly spoke these languages of their domains. Did they still speak their own older Frankish language? Perhaps not. What language did the Carolingians speak at home? We may not know.

If Louis keeps the oath that he has sworn to his brother Charles, and Charles, my lord, on the other hand breaks it, and if I cannot dissuade him from it — neither I nor anyone that I can dissuade from it — then I shall not help him in any way against Louis.

If Charles keeps the oath that he has sworn to his brother Louis, and Louis, my lord, on the other hand breaks the oath he has sworn, and if I cannot dissuade him from it — neither I nor anyone that I can dissuade from it — then I shall not follow him against Charles.

The text and translation here are taken off Wikipedia, which does not credit the original translator. It was frustrating over the years to have European history books that would talk about the Oaths but then not quote them in the original languages.

Soon enough this combination led to a settlement, the Treaty of Verdun (843), heavy with portent for the future. The division was equal enough, Charles the Bald in the West (Francia Occidentalis), Louis the German in the East (Francia Orientalis), and Lothar in the Middle and South (Francia Media). The domain of Charles would become France, and that of Louis Germany. It was a while, however, before the arrangement would evolve into such modern identities. All Charles and Louis were really doing was enforcing the ancient Frankish rules of succession. It need not have been permanent, as indeed it would not look to be when Charles III reunited nearly the whole Empire. His incompetence, however, allowed the reassertion of the centrifugal forces already evident at Strasbourg.

Italy and Burgundy were prestigious possessions for Lothar, but they were not centers of Frankish power, and the northern area looks precariously and ominously sandwiched between the compact realms of his brothers. This turned out to be especially unfortunate when Lothar not only predeceased his brothers by a good margin but left behind him his own problem of multiple sons. Natural fragments were distributed between them. Louis, who now became the Emperor Louis II, needed to have Rome and so received Italy. Charles got Burgundy, and Lothar got the rest, i.e. that precarious northern area, with which Lothar's name was now permanently associated: It became Lotharingia, reduced to Lothringen in German and Lorraine in French (and, usually, English).

None of the sons of Lothar I managed to outlive their uncles. But the older men pounced even while the Emperor Louis II still lived, dividing Lorraine between them and depriving Louis of part of Burgundy. All of Lorraine and Burgundy, of course, should have reverted to him. This reveals the relative strength of the Western and Eastern Frankish kingdoms, and the persistent ruthlessness of Charles the Bald and Louis the German. When the Emperor Louis then died, Charles got into Italy, to Rome, and to the Imperial crown first.

With the deaths of his brothers, Charles the Fat ended up with all of Germany and Italy. Then the deaths of his young cousins, from whom he had already extorted part of Lorraine, left no one but an even younger brother as the heir to the West Frankish kingdom. This young Charles (later "the Simple") was set aside, and Charles the Fat managed to reassemble the entire Empire of Charlemagne -- except for Burgundy (but he also does not figure in the actual count of French kings -- Charles the Bald was Charles II of France, and Charles the Simple would be Charles III of France, though sometimes different numberings are seen). This apparent triumph was in fact hollow. The now Emperor Charles III was nowhere near up to the task of holding off the Vikings and Arabs who were currently ravaging even the inner parts of the realm. The Germans became so disgusted with him that he suffered the ignominy of being deposed as East Frankish king. The Germans elected an illegitimate nephew of Charles, Arnulf of Carthinthia, as the East Frankish king. The West Frankish nobility elected a non-Carolingian, Odo of Paris. This is the family that would soon become the long lasting Capetian house of France. Feeling for the Carolingian house, however, was still strong, and although the West Franks turned to Odo's family again before the end of the Carolingian period, he was followed by the last son of Louis the Stammerer, Charles (III) the Simple.

Meanwhile, Burgundy and Italy spun off to more local Carolingian in-laws, among whom the title of Emperor was passed around for a time. After Berengar (I of Italy), however, the title simply lapsed. Since the Popes could have bought some influence with an Imperial coronation, it is a good question why they stopped bothering. There was thus an Imperial interregnum from 922 to 962.

With the last of the main lines of the Carolingians, one connection that intrigued me involved the sister of Otto of Lorraine. Most histories don't even show a sister (if they even show Otto), but she originally came to my attention in From Scythia to Camelot by C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor [Garland Publishing, Inc., New York, 1994, p.298]. Littleton and Malcor identify her as "Irmengard," who married Albert of Namur. Their daughter, Hedwig, then marries Gerhard, Duke of Upper Lorraine; and their son, Dietrich, marries Gertrude, heiress of Flanders. Their descendants are subsequent Counts of Flanders. For some time this was the only source where I found this connection attested. Now, however, I have found it in the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Part 1, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997, p.64]. There the sister of Otto is given as "Adelheid," not "Irmengard," but the marriage to Albert, Count of Namur, is shown. Their daughter, Hedwig (with a question mark), is then shown on page 66, married to Gerhard of Lorraine, as in Littleton and Malcor.

Charles the Simple's most famous and important deed was to cede some land, which became Normandy, to the Norse chieftain Rollo in 911. This was also about the time that the last Carolingian in Germany, Louis the Child, died, and the Germans turned to Conrad of Franconian. That was the end of the Carolingians in East Francia. The nobility of Lorraine decided to uphold Carolingian legitimacy by attaching themselves to the Western kingdom; but soon it looked like West Francia would follow the East, when Charles, as much over his head as his cousin Charles the Fat had been, was deposed and Robert of Paris, Odo's brother, was elected. Robert was followed by his son-in-law, Rudolf of Burgundy, but then the West Franks turned to the Carolingians again, bringing Louis IV back from exile in England ("outre mer").

This started to look like Carolingians getting established again, since one of Louis's son, Charles, even became the ruler of the new "duchy" of Lorraine (no longer a separate kindom, and in fact now divided; the Carolingians got Lower Lorraine). But these were not strong rulers, and the monarchy itself was becoming weaker and weaker.

When Louis V died, Charles of Lorraine was ignored, and the West Frankish throne, which one may as well call "France" at this point, passed permanently to the house of Paris. It had little land and little effective power any longer attached to it.

The Carolingians of Lorraine did not last much longer than the royal lines, though their blood continued in their in-laws among the local nobility, most importantly the house of Alsace, which succeeded to the Duchy of Lorraine and the County of Flanders.

The Carolingians of Lorraine were not alone as the last Carolingians. A line descended from Bernard, King of Italy, who had been killed in 818, became the Counts of Vermandois.

I was unaware of the descendants of Bernard of Italy until finding the book The Carolingians, A Family Who Forged Europe, by Pierre Riché [University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993, translated by Michael Idomir Allen from Les Carolingiens, une famille qui fit l'Europe, Hachette, 1983]. Brian Tompsett confirms the descent of the Counts of Vermandois as Carolingians, but WW-Person, A WWW Data base of European nobility does not. Riché ends the male descent of Vermandois with Herbert III of Vermandois, Herbert the Younger of Troyes, and Herbert of Meaux, which left Otto of Lorraine in place as the last Carolingian. However, both Tompsett and WW-Person list Stephen Count of Champagne, Meaux, and Troyes (Tompsett twice, as son of both Herbert the Elder and Herbert, Count of Meaux, identified as "Herbert the Younger"). Stephen beats out Otto.

But WW-Person shows Carolingian descent even beyond this, with descendants of Herbert III of Vermandois all the way down to the heiress Adelaide who marries Hugh, a son of King Henry I of France. There is also a line shown of Counts of Soissons, beginning with Guy I, given as a brother of Herbert III. This also ends with an heiress named Adelaide. If this is all correct, then the Carolingians continue for a century longer than I would have previously thought.

I have now been able to compare this previous information with the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 1, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser I Westeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Part 1, Third Edition, 2001]. The Carolingian descent is confirmed. Guy I of Soissons is given, but with a note of uncertainty. Most importantly, many more descendants of Adelaide and Hugh the Great are given, including Capetian Counts of Vermandois down to 1214.

The many heiresses in this diagram, of course, continue Carolingian descent through their marriages, especially to the houses of Anjou, Flanders, and Blois. Descendants of all of these marriages continue until the present day.

The west, Francia Occidentalis, grows into modern France, speaking a Romance language, and the east, Francia Orientalis, grows into modern Germany, officially speaking a High German dialect that might have seemed uncouth to Charlemagne. From the middle kingdom of Lothar, Francia Media, came three divisions. Lorraine in the north is only briefly a separate kingdom and then settles down as a Stem Duchy of Germany. Burgundy is a separate kingdom until attached to Germany. Its identity then fades away. A fifth kingdom, Italy, comes together in the south, spreading from traditional Lombardy all the way down to Naples and Sicily, which in this period were in a different political and cultural sphere altogether (of Romania or Islâm). From Lorraine and Burgundy, and here and there elswhere, other modern states, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Austria, form -- not to mention the survivors of earlier, more extreme, fragmentation, like Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, and the Vatican City.

The Frankish identity of France was not conceded without comment by the Eastern Franks, i.e. Germans; but the East Frankish Kings forfeited the issue by beginning to claim Roman heritage rather than Frankish. The retention of the Frankish name by the western kingdom is also ironic considering the Roman identification of the French themselves, who have always yearned for the full Rhine frontier of Roman Gaul and became increasingly contemptuous and then fearful of Germany and its sense of its own history. Thus, Charlemagne can be claimed, and named, as a French King, but there is no doubt that he was a German. Except for the catastrophic defeat early in World War II, however, France historically did rather well against Germany. Capetian France began as one of the weakest countries in Europe. Able Kings, however, steadily increased their control over the country and the absolute strength of the state. By the 20th Century, France had all but devoured the old kingdom of Burgundy, nearly all of the Duchy of Upper Lorraine, and Alsace, the part of the Duchy of Swabia west of the Rhine. The only permanent losses were part of Flanders, and the marches south of the Pyrenees that Charlemagne had acquired. Although the France of Louis XIV threatened the Balance of Power of Europe, the Balance was only really upended during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Eras. Through annexations and vassal states, Napoleon briefly reassembled the Empire of Charlemagne, and more -- Charlemagne never conquered Egypt (though St. Louis had tried) or stood, even briefly, victorious in Moscow. Napoleon thus had ambition and reach unlike conquerors within European memory. Although he (and the Revolution) failed, the history and consciousness of Europe were permanently altered, so I've called the period the "French Upheaval."

The Capetians are usually reckoned to begin with Hugh Capet, but his family (the house of Paris or "Robertians," after Robert the Strong) had been nudging the Carolingians for some time, and his uncle (by marriage), grandfather, and great uncle had already been Kings of France. The line now, however, derives its name from an epithet of Hugh himself, "Capet" (Latin capa) being his, apparently, distinctive cape.

By the time the Carolingians died out and Hugh was elected, little remained of the Royal Domain but the miniscule Île de France. However, this was held together and, without succession problems, the Capetians settled into legitimacy and bided their time.The payoff, with Philip Augustus, was the recovery from England of Normandy, Anjou, and much else.

After Philip defeated John "Lackland" and his allies, including the Papal counter-Emperor, Otto (IV) of Brunswick, at Bouvines (1214), the English lost their possessions north of the Loire and thereafter steadily retreated in the south, until much diminished holdings were confirmed in 1259.

Meanwhile, Pope Innocent III had declared a "Crusade" against the heretical Cathari (or Albigensians) in the south of France (or Languedoc). One of the most infamous episodes of the Middle Ages, the Crusade was largely against and at the expense of the Count of Toulouse. In the settlement of 1229, much of the Count's land reverted to the Crown and his daughter and heiress, Joanna, married a son of Louis VIII. When they died without issue, all of Toulouse reverted to the Crown. Meanwhile, much of the distinctive and thriving Provençal culture had been destroyed.

The map above gives dates at least by which the indicated territories, those of England and of Toulouse, were recovered by the Crown. The boundaries south of the Loire should be taken as approximate, since I find disagreements in my sources -- at best an indication that boundaries were often redrawn during the period, at worst that they are not well understood. The second map shows the vast domains conferred on the brothers Charles and Alphonse of Louis IX. Charles acquired Provence by his marriage, and the conquered much in Italy by invitation of the Pope.

The success and prestige of Louis IX was matched only by his reputation for holiness, which won him canonization as early as 1297. His life ended, however, on one of his ill-advised and unsuccessful Crusades. Soon a very different kind of King was on the Throne: Philip (IV) "the Fair." Both the ruthlessness and success of Philip were extraordinary. The Crusading Order of the Knights Templars, who had essentially become bankers, was destroyed, its wealth seized, and its members tortured and judicially murdered (1307-1314). Meanwhile, Pope Boniface VIII had been asserting the strongest claims yet of Papal supremacy and power. Philip sent agents to capture and humiliate the Pope, who then died (1303). The election of a French Pope then led to the relocation of the Papacy to Avignon (1309) and the beginning of the "Babylonian Captivity" (1309-1377), during which few were deceived that the Popes had essentially become agents of the French Crown.
If the crimes of Philip IV merited divine retribution, this was visited only in the form of the extinction of his heirs, at least the male heirs. Thus, following the Salic Law, the French succession eventually jumped to Philip's nephew, Philip (VI) of Valois. However, Philip IV had married Jeanne I, the Queen of Navarre, and his grand-daughter, Jeanne II, inherited that Kingdom. Her descendants would eventually return to the Throne of France through the Bourbons. His daughter Isabelle, married to Edward II of England, would also be the ancestor of subsequent Kings of England. So divine retribution seems somewhat imperfect in this respect.

VALOIS KINGS

Philip VI of Valois

1328-1350

Battle of Crécy, 1346; the Black Death arrives in Paris, 1348; Dauphiné sold to France, by last Count of Vienne, 1349; "Dauphin" becomes title of Crown Prince

John II

1350-1364

Battle of Poitiers, King John captured & held for ransom, 1356

Charles V

1364-1380

Charles VI

1380-1422

Battle of Agincourt, 1415

Charles VII

1422-1461

Louis XI

1461-1483

Charles VIII

1483-1498

The history of the House of Valois seems to be one long dispute over the succession. No sooner had Philip of Valois became King of France than Edward III of England invaded the country to press his claim, setting off the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453).
Seeming to lose every major battle (Crécy, 1346, Poitiers, 1356, Agincourt, 1415), and with large parts of France sometimes occupied, the smart money for many years would have been on the English. Henry V was conceded the French Crown in 1420. But things turned around, Joan of Arc relieved Orléans in 1429, and England lost ground steadily afterwards. With all this not long out of the way, however, Charles VIII was predeceased by all his children. The succession passed, without too much dispute, to the Duke of Orléans.

Meanwhile, however, other mischief had been done. The brothers of Charles V had all been given major Duchies to rule, and the Royal cousins in Burgundy soon proved themselves a Royal pain for the Monarchy, attempting to reconstruct Francia Media, often as allies of the English. There would be hell to pay for this; but, strangely enough, by the end of the Valois period France was larger and stronger than at the beginning. Even during the reign of Philip VI a major step was taken in chipping away at the Empire to the east. Later France would take most of the 18th century to acquire Alsace and Lorraine, but most of the Imperial Kingdom of Burgundy would be acquired by the reign of Henry IV (numbers in blue are the dates of acquisition by France). The greatest and most fateful early French acquisition was of the Dauphiné. In 1349 Count Humbert II (d.1355), the "Dauphin," simply sold the territory to the grandson of Philip VI, the prince who would later become Charles V. Thus, Charles became the first "Dauphin" of France, and as he was the Crown Prince from 1350-1364, this now became the traditional title of the Heir Apparent of France. For some time, however, the Dauphiné was still legally part of the Kingdom of Burgundy rather than France and was held as a personal possession by the Dauphin. The Emperor Charles IV was still formally crowned as King of Burgundy at Arles in 1365. When the future Louis XI acted somewhat too independently, however, Charles VII (1422-1461) formally annexed the Dauphiné to the Royal domain of France (1457). (Other details of this map are described in relation to the Counts & Dukes of Savoy.)

Amid all the setbacks of the Hundred Years War, this was a portent for the future. The biggest break came when Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was killed in 1477 and Louis XI was able to secure the return of large parts of the Burgundian domain to France, since the heiress Mary of Burgundy would not inherit under the Salic Law. Mary's husband, however, the Emperor Maximillian of Hapsburg, was going to contest this. He was successful in the return of the Free County (Franche Comté) of Burgundy, which was not a fief of France, and of Artois, which was. In fact, Flanders, which had always been a fief of France, was now lost forever. Later, Louis XIV got back the Free County and part of Artois but failed to secure more of what later became Belgium. The Hapsburgs became the principal enemy of France until 1756.

Other major fiefs accrued to the French Crown by the end of this period. After the deaths of René the Good (1480), whose male heirs had predeceased him, and of Charles III, René's nephew, Louis XI secured the return of the Duchy of Anjou, the County of Provence, and, according to some sources, the French part of the Duchy of Bar. Provence was not a fief of France but, like the Dauphiné, of the Kingdom of Burgundy; but René's grandfather, Duke Louis I, had it gotten from Joanna I of Anjou. René's heirs were left with the (Imperial) Duchy of Lorraine, the (Imperial) Duchy of Bar, and the County of Guise. Anne, heiress and Duchess of Brittany (1488-1514), married King Charles VIII in 1491 and then Louis XII in 1499. The understanding was that Brittany would be enfeoffed to a junior line; but after Anne's daughter Claudia (Claude) died in 1524, her husband, King Francis I, kept the Duchy and incorporated it into the Royal domain in 1532.

In 1494 Charles VIII invaded Italy in order to retrieve the Kingdom of Naples for France. The Anjevian line ruling Naples had died out in 1435, and while Queen Joanna II willed the country to Duke René the Good of Anjou and Lorraine, by 1442 it was in the hands of Alfonso V of Aragón. As the possessions of the House of Anjou fell to the French Throne in 1481, Charles decided to go after Naples, which had been left by Alfonso to his illegitimate son Ferdinand. Charles raised hell in Italy and managed to occupy Naples until being forced back in 1495. This brief episode, however, is often considered one of the events, like the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and Columbus's Discovery of America in 1492, marking the beginning of Modern History. It did this is in a double revelation: one that the Italian city states were so weak, and two that a national state like France had become so strong. It was the end of Mediaeval Italy. The sequel, however, was just as astounding: the French would be defeated by Spain, which in Charles's day had just managed to complete the Reconquista. But the matter was not settled easily.

The succession of Louis XII of Orléans and Francis I of Angoulême brought the possessions of their houses with them. During the reign of Francis I, the line of the Dukes of Bourbon then died out with the Duchess Suzanne and her cousin Charles III, returning their domains. Finally, the succession of Henry IV, to anticipate a bit, brings with it the remaining possessions of the Kingdom of Navarre and the Duchy and Counties of Vendôme, Foix, Albret, etc. By then, few fiefs within West Francia were left outside the control of the King. One noteworthy territory was that around Avignon, which had never been a fief of France (Imperial Burgundy, again), was the seat of the Papacy from 1309 to 1377, had been bought outright in 1348 by Pope Clement VI from Queen Joanna I of Naples, and remained a Papal State until nationalized by Revolutionary France in 1791. Encompassed by the Papal enclave was the Principality of Orange, independent until 1713, significant as one source of the house that would come to champion and then rule the Netherlands.

Although the Orléans and Angoulême Kings are usually still considered part of the House of Valois, they were nevertheless more distantly related to the last Kings of the main succession than Philip VI was to the last Capetians. Francis I was only a third cousin of Charles VIII, marrying his second cousin, Claudia, the daughter of Louis XII. The House of Orléans was also descended from the Visconti of Milan, which helped motivate Louis XII's and Francis I's invasions of Italy, pursuing a claim to Milan. Louis's sister Marie married into the House of Foix and Navarre, but then his brilliant nephew, Gaston de Foix, was killed in what was actually a French victory at Ravenna in 1512. Amazingly, the many children of Henry II were mostly childless. This set the stage for a succession crisis with the largest element of civil war.

Following the precedent of Charles VIII, Louis XII invaded Italy again in 1499 to press his claim to Milan as well as to Naples. This was at first successful. The French held Milan 1499-1512. Louis then went on against Naples and obtained an agreement in 1500 to divide the Kingdom. But Ferdinand of Aragón was not going to leave that alone. He deposed his cousin, Frederick IV of Naples, in 1501 and then defeated the French at Garigliano in 1503. Louis was driven out of Italy altogether in 1512. When Francis I became King in 1515, he immediately invaded Italy again, defeating the Swiss, and occupying Milan (1515-1522, 1524-1525). French possession of Milan was confirmed by Spain with the Treaty of Noyon in 1516. However, the new King of Spain, Charles I (in 1519 Emperor Charles V), repudiated the Treaty. In 1525 Charles not only defeated but captured Francis at the Battle of Pavia. Francis agreed to the Peace of Madrid in 1526, was released, and immediately broke the treaty, as well as his parole, and went back to war. The mutinous Spanish army sacked Rome in 1527 (Pope Clement VII was allied to the French), Francis again occupied Milan in 1528, but then Charles crushed the combined French forces at Landriano in 1529. The French adventure in Italy, and one of the first great exercises in modern power politics, was largely over. There were, indeed, some further wars until the French defeat at St. Quentin in 1557 and Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, but this netted France only Calais and some toeholds in Lorraine (garrisons at Metz, Toul, & Verdun), not any gains in Italy (though Savoy was occupied, 1536-1559).

Of all the royal succession crises in the history of France, the greatest was certainly the one that raged as the prospective death of Henry III would end the succession of the house of Angoulême. The famous "Three Henries" contending at the time were King Henry III, Henry Duke of Guise, the Candidate of the fire eating Catholics, and Henry of Navarre -- actually King Henry III of Navarre -- of the House of Bourbon and Vendôme, who was, most inconveniently for that era, a Protestant.
Not just civil war was the problem, but invasion by Spain.

Since I have rarely come across the full illustration of Bourbon descent, it is given here. The line of the Kings of Navarre, although going all the way back to King Louis X of France, is given separately under Spain as a note on "The French Kings of Navarre."

Henry of Guise was of the house of Anjou and Lorraine, descendants of King John II of France. Henry of Navarre's connection was more distant, as the Dukes of Bourbon were descendants of King St. Louis IX, but their line was then more senior. The Catholics also put hope in Navarre's uncle, Charles the Cardinal of Bourbon, but he died just a year after the King. The line of the Bourbon House of Condé is continued in a separate popup.

Henry of Navarre had a much more immediate claim on the throne than Guise. His grandmother was a sister of King Francis I, so he was actually the second cousin of the Kings Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III, all brothers. Although the female connections couldn't pass muster of the Salic Law governing the French succession, the close relationships helped, as was confirmed when he married Margaret, sister of the then King Charles IX. But this reconciliation was followed shortly by the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, when perhaps as many as 10,000 French Protestants were killed. Civil war raged again. In 1588, just as the Catholics and the Duke of Guise seized Paris and humiliated King Henry, the Duke and his brother, the Cardinal of Guise, were murdered on the King's orders. The King himself was then assassinated (1589), and Henry of Navarre became King, followed by a Spanish invasion of France. Henry then suddenly (1593) disarmed the opposition by converting to Catholicism. Cynicism was widely suspected (Paris vaut bien une messe, "Paris is worth a Mass"), but the move was effective, especially as the opposition was seen as agents of Spain. A similar bon mot is attributed to Henry, although I am unable to verify it or even find an original version in French. This was supposed to have been Henry saying, "No believes that Elizabeth of England is a virgin, that the Archduke Albert is a good general, or that I am a Catholic." Whether or not this was really said by Henry, it should have been. Although Henry himself was subsequently assassinated, the Bourbons were firmly on the Throne -- until the fateful events of 1789.

BOURBON KINGS

Henry IV of Bourbon

1589-1610

War with Spain, 1595-1598; Edict of Nantes, 1598

Louis XIII

1610-1643

Thirty Years War, 1618-1648

Louis XIV

1643-1715

Treaty of Westphalia, 1648; War of Devolution, 1667-1668; Dutch War, 1672-1678; Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685; War of the League of Augsburg, 1688-1697; War of the Spanish Succession, 1701-1713

Louis XV

1715-1774

War of the Polish Succession, 1733-1735; War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748; Seven Years War, 1756-1763; Corsica ceded by Genoa, 1768

Louis XVI

1774-1792;d.1793

War of American Independence, 1778-1783; French Revolution, 1789; First Republic, 1792-1804; the Convention, 1792-1795; King & Queen executed, 1793; Reign of Terror, 1793-1794; The Directory, 1795-1799; Consulate, 1799-1804; First Empire, 1804-1814, 1815

Under the Bourbons, France rose to be the most powerful state in Europe, and a paradigm of Royal Absolutism. Troubled by episodes of Huguenot and noble opposition under Louis XIII and Louis XIV, the Monarchy nevertheless went from success to success. Entering the Thirty Years War on the side of the faltering Protestants, under the advice of the Cardinal Richelieu, it became clear that raison d'état had trumped loyalty to the Catholic cause.

Louis XIV, who completed and consolidated France's position, foreign and domestic, and under whom the prosperity, power, and splendor of the country, and his Court, became the envy and admiration of Europe, nevertheless began to dissipate and undermine these achievements, mainly through the series of incessant wars that he began in 1667 and that continued nearly to his death. These wars in fact resulted in permanent additions of territory to the Kingdom (and the installation of a Bourbon line in Spain), long the object of French policy, but the cost was permanent damage to the prosperity of the country and the finances of the government -- and Louis topped it off, forgetting raison d'état, by revoking the Edict of Nantes (1685) and expelling the Huguenots, who immediately added their considerable enterprise to his Protestant enemies.

"Those who didn't live in the eighteenth century before the Revolution do not know the sweetness of living."

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord

The France of Louis XV then had nothing like the position in Europe that Louis XIV had once had. Now England was waxing in power. French naval power and colonial possessions in America and India were permanently broken and subordinated in the Seven Years War (1756-1763). Meanwhile, Madame de Pompadour developed for the King a veritable production line of young mistresses, whom he would visit at the notorious "Deer Park" (Parc aux Cerfs), with their many bastards pensioned off.

The cost of the continuing wars was ultimately beyond the resources of the government, and the French Revolution began when Louis XVI merely called the Estates General to try and get more revenue (1789). New revenue there would be, the first example of national mobilization for total war, but Louis XVI would derive no benefit from it. Republican France then lept into European hegemony, of a kind that had not been seen in many centuries, perhaps not since Charlemagne, a precedent not lost on Napoleon. The opposition, however, still led by England, ground this down. The Bourbons were restored, to rather underwhelming enthusiasm. They could never again be accepted as truly representing the Nation, rather than an imposition on it. The "bourgeois" King, Louis Philippe, with the Liberal tradition of the House of Orléans behind him, was one way of trying to resolve this, but the Royal monarchy ended with its failure in 1848. The Pretenders to the French Monarchy are today still of the line of Orléans.

The French Revolution had two major unexpected results, the Reign of Terror and the dictatorship of Napoleon. Thomas Jefferson thought that the violence might actually be worth it, if only one man and woman were left, to get rid of the Old Regime. However, he then realized that the power of the Terrorists was not, after all, being used for any worthy end. Napoleon at first "saved the Revolution" but then produced his own version of the Old Regime. In 1803 he began handing out new Imperial Electorships to his supporters (e.g. Baden, Württemberg) in Germany, perhaps looking forward to being elected Holy Roman Emperor. However, his patience with this didn't last more than a year. He would have had a long time to wait, since the Emperor Francis II lived until 1835 (though, to be sure, he might have been deprived of his crown, or his life, a bit earlier if Napoleon had really wanted either). Instead, with the blessing, but not the authority, of the Pope, he crowned himself Emperor, as the new Charlemagne, in 1804. He soon abolished the old Empire (1806), gave his supporters elevated titles (Baden became a Grand Duchy, Württemberg a Kingdom, etc.), and established other monarchies, often for his relatives, in the territories brought under the control of France. The Revolution had already begun to radically transform the map of Europe, but under Napoleon especially the familiar boundaries of European states appeared to melt and run with an alarming fluidity and frequency.

She came to be regarded as Notre Dame de Thermidor, "Our Lady of Thermidor," because of her influence and involvement in the coup of the 9th of Thermidor (27 July 27 1794), which ousted Robespierre and ended the Reign of Terror. As clothing became more diaphanous, and Tallien appeared without underwear, Talleyrand is supposed to have commented, Il n'est pas possible de s'exposer plus somptueusement -- "It is not possible to expose oneself more sumptuously." When she appeared at the Paris Opera as the goddess Diana, in nothing but a tiger skin, First Consul Napoleon, moving toward aristocratic respectability, finally let it be known that this had gone rather too far.

A memorable example of Napoleon's ruthlessness was his kidnapping and execution of the Duke of Enghien, the heir of the Bourbon House of Condé. Enghien was a young, handsome, appealing, and largely apolitical Royal, living quietly in neutral Baden. Frustrated over Royalist plots, Napoleon decided, or was misinformed,

"The unfortunate war in Spain ruined me. All my reverses originated there. The Spanish war destroyed my reputation throughout Europe, increased my difficulties and provided the best possible training ground for English troops. I trained the English army myself, in the Peninsula."

that Enghien was involved in them, and sent a force secretly to get him. Fetched to Vincennes, Enghien, after a perfunctory "trial," was shot and buried. The outrage was general. The bon mot for the occasion was that this was "worse than a crime; it was a mistake." I was long under the impression that the characterization came from Talleyrand, but it seems to have originated instead with his colleague, the Prefect of Police, Joseph Fouché. Talleyrand's own remark was simply, "The House of Condé is no more."

Even Napoleon, however, began to run up against the limits of French power. The British "nation of shopkeepers" frustrated him at sea and poured arms, money, and men into Spain to help in the 1808 national rising against the French -- something rather like the Sicilian Vespers of 1282. Looking to perfect his Continental boycott of Britain, Napoleon unfortunately (for him) turned on an uncooperative Russia. The size of Russia and the punishing winter (or, as it happens, just the autumn -- by December Napoleon was already back in France) destroyed Napoleon's Grande Armée. While the parallel with Hitler's invasion of Russia is oft noted, it is less often recognized that each of them, wanting to ultimately defeat Britain, nevertheless turned resources away from active combat with the British. In Napoleon's case this was in Spain, as in Hitler's it was in North Africa. The result in each case was to forfeit the Mediterranean theater of the general European War while taking on an impossible strategic task in Russia.

With everyone allied against Napoleon, and losing the "Battle of the Nations" at Leipzig in 1813, the collapse then came rapidly enough. Abdicating, Napoleon was unhappy as the Prince of Elba (1814-1815), tried to return to power, and was defeated at Waterloo after only 100 days. His few remaining days were then spent on distant St. Helena, dying in only his 52nd year (1769-1821).

In 1840 Napoleon's body was brought back from St. Helena and enshrined in the Hôtel des Invalides, Louis XIV's home for disabled veterans. Napoleon II, the "King of Rome," was only 21 when he died of tuberculosis. Buried with his Hapsburg family in Vienna, France vainly sought reburial with his father. This was finally effected, in a remarkable show of Imperial collegial affection, by no less than Adolf Hitler, who united son with father in December 1940.

The 19th century French colonial activity was mainly in Africa and East Asia. A fateful move came in 1830, when forces began to occupy Algeria, in great measure to end the piracy that had plagued the Mediterranean for decades. In time this led to the settlement of a French colonial population. A few French possessions on the coast of West Africa led, in the "scramble for Africa" in the 1880's to the huge domains of French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa. Notions that these West African territories might be linked to French Somaliland led to the confrontation of an expedition under Jean Baptiste Marchand with the British at Fashoda in the Sudan in 1898. The British, however, had an army, Lord Kitchener's, on the spot, and there was little France could do.

Another focus of French activity was in Indochina. Involvement in Vietnam even at the beginning of the century was extended to control, not just over Vietnam but, at the expense of Siam, over Cambodia and Laos. This all would come to a catastrophic end at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

In the Pacific, France came into possession of the heart of Polynesia -- Tahiti and all the surrounding islands. When independence was offered in 1960, French Polynesia voted to remain part of France.

The New Hebridies had one of the most curious arrangements in all of imperialism, the Anglo-French "Condominium," or join rule. The islands became independent in 1980 as Vanuatu. Nearby New Caledonia remains part of France.

Some final additions to French possessions came with the end of World War I. The German colonies of Togo and Cameroon were both divided between Britain and France, with the French getting the larger shares (since Tanganyika went to Britain and Southwest Africa to South Africa). Similarly, the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement with Britain gave the French a free hand in Syria, which the British had taken from Turkey. The French regarded themselves as the particular protectors of Lebanese Christians. In 1920 they occupied all of Syria by force, and

Kings of Tahiti

Tu-nui-ea-i-te Atua-i-Tarahoi Vaira'atoa Taina [Outu] Pomare I

1791-1803

Tu Tunuiea'aite-a-tua Pomare II

1803-1821

Te-ri'i-ta-ria Pomare III

1821-1827

'Aimatta Pomare IV Vahine-o- Punuateraitua

1827-1877

French Protectorate, 1842

Teri'i Taria Te-ra-tane Pomare V

1877-1880,d.1891

Sovereignty surrendered to France, 1880; Overseas Territory, 1956

ejected Faysal, who had entered Damascus with the British and been proclaimed King of Syria. Lebanon was then separated from Syria and made into "Greater Lebanon" with the addition of the Bekaa Valley. In what can then can be seen as little more than vindictiveness, the French "punished" the Syrians for their disaffection by ceding Antioch to Turkey in 1939.

While French colonialism may have had less of the racism and racial separateness that now seem characteristic of British practice, it nevertheless was rather more intent on imposing French "civilization" and less tolerant of taking "no" for an answer -- while the British condescended to allow quaint native customs and institutions to survive, within limits. Thus, the French history with Syria contrasts with the British relationship to Egypt, where the British penchant for indirect rule reached its highest state (Egypt was thus never more than a British Protectorate, and that only from 1914-1922 -- the military occupation of 1882 had not ended de jure Ottoman suzerainty and the pretext of local Egyptian autonomy). France, to be sure, had tolerated the continuation of

Kings of Madagascar

Adriantsimitoviaminandriana

1710-1735

Andriambelomasina

1735-1760

Andrianjafy

1760-1783

Andrianampoinimerina

1783-1809

Radama I

1809-1828

Ranavalona I

1828-1861

Radama II

1861-1863

Rasoherina

1863-1868

Ranavalona II

1868-1883

Ranavalona III

1883-1896,d.1917

French Protectorate, 1895-1958;Overseas Territory, 1958-1960

local monarchies in Vietnam and elsewhere, but much tighter control was exercised than, for instance, the British did over the Indian Princely States.

The Kings of Tahiti are from a website of Tatihian history by Christopher Buyers. The Kings of Madagascar are from the Oxford Dynasties of the World, by John E. Morby [Oxford University Press, 1989, 2002, p.237]. Although the names do not look very similar, the languages of Tahiti and Madagascar are actually, like Hawaiian, Malayo-Polynesian

languages. Tahiti was claimed for Britain by Captain Samuel Wallis in 1767. It was then claimed for France by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville in 1768. James Cook visited in 1769 and William Bligh with the Bounty in 1788. When Queen Pomare IV ejected some French missionaries, French control soon followed in 1842. French influence in Madagascar was recognized by Britain in 1890, as part of a deal that left Kenya to them. Madagascar voted for autonomy in 1958 as an "Overseas Territory" and for independence from France in 1960. Tahiti settled for autonomy. Now there are complaints that more of the young are speaking French than Tahitian.

At left we have the French governors of Kwangchouwan (Kuang-chow-wan, Guangzhouwan, modern Chankiang or Zhanjiang), which France leased from China in 1898. This anchored the French sphere of influence and Treaty Ports in southern China. After the fall of France in 1940, the Governor placed his loyalty in the Free French. The Japanese weren't going to like that, but then it didn't make much difference anyway. The Japanese also occupied Vichy controlled territories, and eventually they got around to occupying Kwangchouwan. After the War, the city was simply returned to China. The list of Governors is from a page at the World Statesmen site.

The Imperial crown for Napoleon is shown with an orange nimbus. This is to indicate that Napoleon was crowned by the Pope (Pius VII), as with the Mediaeval Emperors, but with the irregularity that it was not in Rome and, well, Napoleon actually took the crown out of the Pope's hands and crowned himself. This was to avoid the kind of claims that the Popes had made since Charlemagne, that the imperial title was the Pope's to bestow, but it was a bit gratuitous at a time when everyone knew that Napoleon was the kind of ruler who might have killed the Pope as easily as invited him to his nice coronation -- though at this point, to be sure, Napoleon was making a bid for legitimacy and trying to find a place for himself among the traditional families and authorities of Europe. By the time of Napoleon III, the Pope (Pius IX) was dependent on French troops holding Rome for him against the new Kingdom of Italy. When the French withdrew to fight Prussia in 1870, the Italians rolled in and made Rome the capital of Italy. This officially ended the existence of the Papal State, after 1114 years (756-1870). The Popes then regarded themselves as hostages in the Vatican until, of all people, Mussolini worked out a treaty in 1929 establishing the independence and boundaries of the Vatican City.

After Napoleon III allowed himself to be tricked into declaring war on Prussia, and then abdicated after disastrous defeat, France, although few would have guessed it at the time, was through with both Kings and Emperors. With the Third Republic, France settled in to a modern democratic normalcy. Eventually the great enemy even ceased to be England. A dangerous and aggressive unified Germany drew France into alliances with Russia and then England.

When the Germans attacked in 1914, the result was appalling carnage such as had not been seen in war before, and it took the Americans to win the war, but then Germany was defeated and, better, Alsace and Lorraine, taken in 1871, were returned.

Unfortunately, the job would have to be done all over again, and France was not quite up to it. Defeatism and even Fascist sympathizers drained the élan vital that, in 1914, the French had once thought was all they needed to win wars. Enough it was not, but its absence altogether was disastrous. In 1940 Hitler accomplished the swift and crushing victory that the Kaiser had only dreamed about in 1914.

The humiliation and the mortification of the Germans marching into Paris was almost more than the French spirit could bear, but, what's worse, there were plenty who were more than happy to welcome Fascism and cooperate with the German occupation and the harrowing of the Jews. The old anti-Semitism that had once framed Alfred Dreyfus as a spy for Germany now joined with Germany to continue the project. The Free French of Charles de Gaulle, who used the "Cross of Lorraine" as their symbol, were almost an embarrassment. Indeed, when the British attacked elements of the French fleet in 1940, fearful that the Germans would gain control over them, many French may have remembered older fulminations about "perfidious Albion." But de Gaulle organized whole Free French units to fight with the Allies. They landed at Normandy and were later able to liberate Paris -- after the French had scuttled their own fleet in 1942 when the Germans moved to occupy all of France.

People who, like the present author, lived through the German occupation in Poland, later read French memoirs of the war years that seemed to describe a fairy-tale world. The French during the war continued to attend theatres, published without inhibition books and journals censored by the Germans, and gave each other literary prizes; high schools and universities functioned. Life was poorer, to be sure, but its continuity was not broken.

Liberation was a confused combination of relief, joy, shame, and the dangerous temptation of a pro-Soviet French Communist Party. Disastrous defeat in Indo-China, another nasty war in Algeria, along with raging inflation, served to discredit the new Fourth Republic. The solution, again, came from Charles de Gaulle, who created a Fifth Republic with a strong Presidency and abruptly cut loose the French colonial empire (1960), including even Algeria (1962). This actually led to a conspiracy of military men and attempts at a coup d'état and assassinations against de Gaulle. These failed, and the large French colonial population of Algeria left the country for France. This was very harsh medicine, but France came out the better for it under de Gaulle's firm hand. The worst was perhaps suffered by the French educated Algerians who ended up tortured and murdered by the new regime. Algeria has never been the better for that, and France now suffers tension over the Algerians who eventually followed the colonials, looking for a better life -- unfortunately finding it in a form that has created its own problems.

The tension over Algerian immigration, besides some inevitable cultural friction, has in great measure been the result of the high unemployment and poor to negative economic growth that have followed from the heavy burden of socialist economic policies. The 1990's (and now half the 2000's) were very nearly a decade that never happened for the French economy, despite all the fireworks over European unification and freer trade. This is perhaps France's greatest challenge today, a crushing tax burden (54% on as little as $45,000, plus 16% social security), labor unions that evidently would prefer a mediaeval guild system, and farcical policies like prohibiting people from working more than a certain number of hours (even for themselves). Ironically, the French seemed to like America best, despite their own socialist President Mitterrand, when Ronald Reagan was President, despite his standing for almost everything that France wasn't. While America had its Reagan, and Britain its Thatcher, France is still waiting for a leader who can save the country from itself. Meanwhile, the new woman to be chosen "Marianne," the symbol of France, model Laetitia Casta (as seen at right), immediately moved to Britain to avoid French taxes. Smart girl. French resistance and obstruction leading up to the American campaign against Iraq in 2003 has resulted in considerable anti-French feeling in the United States, probably matched by anti-American feeling in France. It would not be so bad if French foreign policy didn't look so much like it did in 1938 -- and if attacks against synagogues were not something considerably more frequent in France than in the United States. What is missing in contemporary France and Germany both is an appreciation for classical liberalism -- i.e. free markets as well as social tolerance. It is noteworthy that "liberalism" (or "neo-liberalism") is a bad word in nearly all fashionable ideology, whether derived from Hegel, Nietzsche, or Marx. Napoleon's contempt for Britain as a "nation of shopkeepers" continues today in countries that could stand a great deal more shopkeepers; but the French and Germans know that the "Anglo-Saxon" model of liberalism is what contradicts their stupefying socialist institutions. They resent and envy it even as they feel a moral superiority for their own circumstances, however awkward for them those are. Since nearly every evil of the 20th century resulted from a rejection of liberalism, this all reflects a continuing unwillingness to learn from history that is astounding in its obstinacy and folly.

In late March 2006 there were demonstrations in Paris, this time over a minor attempt by the government to reform labor law. The idea that workers younger than 26 might be fired without cause within the first two years of employment provoked great indignation, including sympathy strikes by transport workers across France. When general unemployment in France hovers around 10% and youth unemployment is something like 22%, this popular response to so timid a liberalization is a tragicomic tribute to the level of folly in French political culture. The socialist rejection of liberal economics is now so instinctive and fundamental to French identity that there is even a word for it, dirigisme, "interventionism." The word is related to the word "dirigible," from Latin dirigere, "to arrange, direct" (an so by implication, "steer"). We get the word "direct" from the participle. Indeed, an image of the Hindenberg might be apt for the French economy and society. The demonstrators know, of course, that the success of a small initial reform might lead to others, and others, and perhaps ultimately to an American free market in labor. They can't have that.

In 2007 we now get something (entirely?) different, the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, a "conservative" of Hungarian Jewish ancestry, as President of the Republic. However much a free market reformer or friend of America Sarkozy may prove to be, socialists, anarchists, and Muslim radicals immediately rioted. Always a hopeful sign. It will be nice if Sarkozy has the courage to deal both with the radicals and with the follies of the French economy and foreign policy.

Early in 2013, we are indeed beginning to see; and there is nothing of the "Nixon goes to China" about François Hollande. He is all about taxing and regulating, and the French economy has responded with unemployment up above 10% again. Meanwhile, actor Gerard Depardieu has left the country, quite openly to avoid the taxes. Premier Jean-Marc Ayrault faults Depardieu for lack of patriotism; but Depardieu thinks that enough is enough. At first the actor simply moved to Belgium; but his subsequent actions raise questions about his judgment in general, regardless of his patriotism. Russian semi-dictatorial President Vladmir Putin offered Depardieu Russian citizenship. He went for it, which may mean that he has not been following the news from Russia very closely, or that he is as brainless as a lot of other actors, at least outside his own finances.

By 2014, unemployment in France was above 11% and the Socialists began losing elections. According to some polls, Mr. Hollande had become the most unpopular President of the Fifth Republic -- with an approval rating down to 16% (cf. "Vive la Reine!" The Economist, June 14, 2014, p.47). He was forced to accept a new Government with more market friendly politicians. Perhaps in response, unemployment by June of 2014 has dipped below 10% -- although back up again later in the month. This is an extraordinary business considering the lack of popularity of Capitalism in France, as we have seen above ("A bas le capitalisme!").

Piketty is a member of the ruling class. Piketty's way puts Piketty and his friends in charge of everything. A one-time adviser to the Socialist politician Ségolène Royal, a star academic and a columnist for Libération, Piketty is a quintessential member of what the economist Joseph Schumpeter identified as the "new class"...

There is a reason the most passionate foes of income inequality tend to be very affluent but not super rich, intellectuals like Paul Krugman and other journalists eager to set the threshold for confiscatory tax rates just beyond their own income levels...

Piketty's argument... is a warrant to empower those who think they are smarter than the market -- and who feel superior to those most richly rewarded by it.

The experience of Mr. Hollande is cold comfort for the Left in the United States. In the anti-American universe, the French are the good guys and know what they're doing. The persistent high unemployment and poor growth of the French economy, even before Mr. Hollande, is systematically ignored. But Hollande's experience has to be particularly galling, since we can say that he was doing no more than following the advice of French economist Thomas Piketty.

The American Left (and even the Papacy) has been getting the vapors over Piketty's book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century [in English, Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2014 -- Le capital au XXIe siècle, Seuil, 2013], which feeds their craving for high taxes, big spending, and big "redistributionist" government. Piketty's thesis fits in with the current Democrat Party Line that "income inequality" is the bane of the age -- a claim voiced by Barack Obama himself. Piketty, who evidently has not even left Paris in years (like Kant in Königsberg), argues that over time return on capital has outstripped the income of workers. So we have the Marxist thesis that the rich are getting richer, at least relative to everyone else. This should be corrected with something like an 80% income tax on high incomes and even a world-wide "wealth" tax on the general holdings of the rich. In its own way, compared to proper Marxism, these are modest proposals. That Mr. Hollande set out to put something of the sort into practice, almost contemporaneous with the publication of the book in France, to disastrous results, is equally disastrous to the whole Leftist worldview -- although the logical connection between Hollande and Piketty has not been highlighted in American public discourse, even by free market commentators.

But everyone should know that the evidence has long been in already. As noted, high taxes in France, and high unemployment, did not originate with Mr. Hollande. In the United States, high unemployment and poor growth have similarly characterized "Blue" States like New York, California, and New Jersey, while low unemployment, good growth, and substantial job creation have characterized low tax "Red" States like Texas and the Dakotas. Indeed, Stephen Moore and Richard Vedder recently cited statistics showing that income inequality, supposedly the fruit of laissez-faire capitalism,

In Thomas Piketty's highly-praised new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, he asserts that the top tax rate under President Herbert Hoover was 25 percent. But Internal Revenue Service records show that it was 63 percent in 1932. If Piketty can't even get his facts straight, why should his grandiose plans for confiscatory global taxation be taken seriously?

Thomas Sowell, "Random thoughts on the passing scene," May 27, 2014

is actually lower in Texas than it is in New York and California ["The Blue-State Path to Inequality," The Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2014, p.A15]. This should not be surprising, since it ought to be evident to all that inequality has risen under the Obama Administration, whose tax-and-spend ways and relentless rhetorical and legal attacks on business and finance have resulted in historically slow growth and large numbers of people actually leaving the workforce, after jobs could not be found or welfare benefits exceeded earned income. Meanwhile, the wealth of those associated with government has increased, to the point where many of the wealthiest counties in the country form a ring around Washington, D.C. They are the home of people of the "ruling class," those wealthy off of government, such as Mr. Piketty himself.

Piketty's thesis that return on capital has increased has itself been disputed [Martin Feldstein, "Piketty's Numbers Don't Add Up," The Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2014], although even if Piketty were correct, the proper response should be "So what?" or even "Good!" By wishing to turn capital into politically distributed income, Piketty demonstrated a lack of understanding of what capital is even for.

Economists agree that a large capital stock is a key ingredient for prosperity, as it expands our productive capacity and raises worker productivity, which in turns increases wages and consumer purchasing power. Our capital stock is comparatively much smaller today than it was before the Great Depression. The ratio of business-sector capital to output is about 30% smaller today than it was in 1929.

You need Say's Law for that. As it is, where the political talking point is about "income inequality," we might think that Piketty holds that returns on capital, i.e. profits, are simply spent as income, i.e. on the conspicuous consumption of the rich, instead of adding to the stock of capital. However, Piketty is aware of the difference between capital and profits, and his thesis is that the stock of capital increases over time. This means that the rich must reinvest rather than just spend their income, which will increase both capital and income and enable the rich to buy up everything. But then one would think that capital does nothing except generate income for the wealthy. Otherwise it just sits there, like the treasure of Smaug. But the truth is that productive capital is a necessary condition for the expansion of mass production, producing goods for the benefit of all consumers. Poor investments result in the loss of capital, not its growth. Capital is volatile. The Vanderbilts simply spent all their money and ceased to be among the super-rich, or rich at all, after Ibn Khaldûn's canonical four generations.

It remains to be seen whether the French will ever become sufficiently disillusioned with the follies evident in François Hollande and Thomas Piketty. In the United States, where there is fierce resistance to such ideas, and palpable evidence of their failures (e.g. Detroit), along with examples of the success of the free market, it is noteworthy that American intellectuals continue to be seduced by ideas from Europe that not only are anti-American in effect, but that tend to become discredited in Europe just as their American disciples get excited about them. The black and white color of most American police cars, derived from the heraldric colors of the Prussian police state, remain as enduring testimony to the poor judgment of 19th century American "reformers" who introduced police forces into the United States, which now have taken on the appearance of armies of occupation -- with drug raid SWAT teams throwing incendiary grenades into baby cribs.

...France's social crisis is owed in part to the country's economic failure. Growth is nonexistent. Unemployment remains above 10%. A quarter of French youth are unemployed. The most talented young French men and women are more likely to be working in Silicon Valley or London than in Paris. Foreign direct investment in France fell 94% over the past decade, thanks to the country's high taxes, labyrinthine regulations and rigid labor-market rules.

(Precisely to prevent this sort of thing, police in both Britain and America originally, at a time when there were no gun laws, were unarmed.) Similarly, in the 1980's, just as the French were rethinking their love affair with the Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger, American academics suddenly discovered how wonderful he was. Unfortunately, militarized police forces, Heideggerian Nazism, and Marxism are still with us in viciously large quantities, all promoted by American education, where academics are happily shielded from real world evidence and consequences. The experience of France, or even of California, is meaningless to people able to make a living from pure sophistry (i.e. "literary criticism," or sociology).

In one area Mr. Hollande has surprised us. French forces have intervened in Mali to prevent a Jihadist takeover of the country and recover lost territory for the government. After liberating Timbuktu, it became evident that the Jihadists had been destroying the Mediaeval libraries preserved in the city. There had already been some evidence that this had been happening. Since these libraries were treasures of Islamic Civilization, this again exposes the ignorance, barbarity, and savagery of the Islamist movement. The French have also sent forces to some other African countries, perhaps in part conscious of their lack of action during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

and there never was any particular cultural identity, either for the whole or for Lorraine or Burgundy individually. One idea was that whoever was Emperor should have Rome in his possession. Rome itself, however, was actually supposed to be the possession of the Pope. And the Popes were most uneasy about having Emperors hang around in the neighborhood too long. Once Kings of Italy or Burgundy were no longer Emperors, with the honor passing to the distant Germans, the Popes had it more like they wanted it. The German Emperors couldn't afford to spend too much time away from Germany. All this simply resulted in weakness and fragmentation, mostly to the benefit of France, but also for some small modern states, and for the ultimate unification of Italy.

The Kingdom of the German tribe of Burgundians, regnum Burgundorum. They were important players in the last days of the Western Roman Empire, but were then conquered by the Franks. It is possible to define two separate Kingdoms of the tribe in Roman territory. The first was established around Worms (Borbetomagus) on the Rhine, after the Burgundians crossed the frozen river on 1 January 407 with the Vandals, Suevi, and (the Iranian) Alans. This was eliminated by the Romans in 437.

Soon, however, in 443, lands were granted in Sapaudia (Savoy), the tribe was accepted as Roman foederati, and a substandial Kingdom grew up around it, until the Frankish conquest in 532. This Kingdom was not only more durable, but its territory defined the heartland upon which most subsequent forms of Burgundy were based.

The Merovingian Kingdom of Burgundy, regnum Burgundiae, one of the divisions of the larger Merovingian Frankish domain. This was shuffled around with Austrasia and Neustria, the other divisions, among the merry-go-round of Merovingian heirs. As founded by Gunthchramn (St. Guntram, Guntramnus) in 561, this Burgundian domain briefly dominated Francia and began to look like it would develop into an independent Kingdom. However, the line of separate heirs died out in 613, and Burgundy passed to the vigorous Chlothar II, whence it continued down the main line of Merovingian succession.

The Kingdom of Lower Burgundy or Provence, regnum Burgundiae seu Provinciae, resulting from the breakup of the Carolingian Kingdom, shown as follows. Sometimes inaccurately called "Cisjurane" Burgundy.

The Kingdom of Upper Burgundy or "Jurane" Burgundy, regnum Jurense. Although also called "Transjurane Burgundy," Burgundia Transiurensis,
the Kingdom actually straddled the Jura Mountains, which now form the border between France and Switzerland. Yes, the Jurassic Period is named after the Jura Mountains.

The Kingdom of Burgundy, Arles or the Arelate, regnum Burgundiae, regnum Arelatense. This was the result of the union of Lower and Upper Burgundy, shown as follows.

A distinct phase of the Arelate can be identified in the form and the history of the Kingdom after

it was inherited by the Emperor Conrad II in 1032. It came in for increasing neglect and fragmentation during this period, as the Emperors paid little attention to it, and it is a good question when it can be said to have expired altogether. The last Emperor crowned in Arles was Charles IV in 1365. A definitive terminus can be said to have occurred with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, when the Empire surrendered sovereignty over Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. However, the capital of the Free County, Besançon, remained an Imperial City until 1651. This may have been the last area of Imperial jurisdiction in the Arelate Kingdom.

The Lesser Duchy of Burgundy, Burgundia Minor, or klein Burgund, also called the "Duchy of the House of Zähringen." This was essentially modern Switzerland west of the river Reuss, excluding Geneva and French speaking Valais (the Rhône below Sion to Lake Geneva), and would most properly be "Transjurane" Burgundy, on the east side of the Jura Mountains. Bryce says that it "disappears from history after the extinction of the house of Zähringen in the thirteenth century" [p.464]. However, Zähringen holdings extended outside Burgundy from Basel up to Freiburg and Breisgau, and a collateral line did not become extinct but continued to rule the Margravate and then the Grand Duchy of Baden until the 20th century. The City of Bern (Berne), which had been founded in 1191 by Duke Berthold V of Zähringen, is the capital of the Swiss Canton of Bern, and the (de facto) capital of Switzerland. Bern, which joined the Swiss Confederation in 1353, is the second largest Swiss Canton, with an area of 5,959 km2, after Graubünden (Grisons, Grigioni, Grischun, at 7,105 km2), and the second most populous Canton, at 979,802 (in 2009), after Zürich (1,390,124). The Canton still looks a bit like the Lesser Duchy, minus peripheral areas that tend to fall away from feudal domains anyway.

The Free County or Palatinate of Burgundy, the Franche-Comté, Freigrafschaft. This is more properly "Cisjurane" Burgundy, since it is over the Jura Mountains, to the west, from "Transjurane" Burgundy. By marriage, the Free County went to France, the Dukes of Burgundy, the Hapsburgs, Spain, and finally, by force in 1678, back to France.

The Landgravate of Burgundy, Landgrafschaft. Bryce says this was "on both sides of the Aar [Aare river], between Thun and Solothurn" in Western Switzerland. This would largely be territory around the modern city of Bern (Berne). Part of the Lesser Duchy, it disappeared along with it.

The Circle of Burgundy, Kreis Burgund. Established by the Emperor Charles V in 1548 as a division of the entire Empire, to try and organize the now fragmented autonomous states of the whole. Because of the possessions of the Dukes of Burgundy inherited by Charles, the "Circle" included the Free County and all the Hapsburg possessions in the Netherlands, whose origin was in Lorraine rather than Burgundy. As a political or administrative entity, this never amounted to much and in short order one hears nothing about it.

The Duchy of Burgundy, Bourgogne. This was detached from the rest of the Kingdom of Burgundy early under the Carolingians and thereafter always remained a fief of Francia Occidentalis. In modern terms, this may be all that sources now mean by "Burgundy," and it is indeed the homeland of Burgundy wines. The capital, Dijon, is also associated with a style of mustard.

The Valois Dukes of Burgundy amassed great holdings and became arbiters of the region North into the Netherlands in the 15th century. Their possession of the Free Country made them at once Dukes and Counts of Burgundy, stradling the boundary between Francia Media and Francia Occidentalis. They even had ambitions of reviving the Arelate Kingdom proper and being crowned monarchs -- an aspiration that died on the battlefield at Nancy in 1477. Because of this period, Burgundian identity came to overlay much of what was properly Lower Lorraine. Although the Duchy proper reverted to France, most of the rest of the Burgundian holdings passing to the Hapsburgs, whose subsequent acquisition of Spain meant that elements of Burgundian identity, such as the knotty ("raguly") Cross of St. Andrew, ended up used by the Spanish. The Cross was even used as a patch on Spanish uniforms.

When the Duchy of Burgundy reverted to the French Throne in 1477, it became a Province of the Kingdom that survived until the French Revolution. Then the country was divided into Departments, precisely to erase old regional loyalties and identities. For the time being, "Burgundy" entirely disappeared from the map of Europe.

In 1982 France grouped its Departments into "Regions," which look a whole lot like the old Royal Provinces. The Duchy of Burgundy thus has become reborn as the "Region" of Burgundy (Bourgogne). The Franche-Comté has also been reborn as a Region, without, however, any recognition that it was a historic part of Burgundy also. That Western Switzerland, Savoy, the Dauphiné, Provence, and Monaco were also parts of the Burgundian heartland is almost entirely forgotten.

The Kingdom of Burgundy, a feature of the area south of the Rhine and of the Rhône-Saône valley since the 5th century, when the Burgundians settled there, a common unit in the frequent redivisions of the Merovingian kingdom, and a significant part of the inheritance of the Emperor Lothar I, regained its independence with the breakup of the Carolingian Empire and remained so until the 11th century. It is, however, not only mostly forgotten, but its name came to be applied to so many things, mostly thanks to the acquisitions of the French Dukes of Burgundy, that its identity has long been confused with many other domains. Intially divided into Upper (Jurane) and Lower Burgundy (Provence), the classic form of the unified Kingdom came about in 937, with its capital at Arles. The Roman name of Arles, Arelate, is then often used for the Kingdom.

It does not help that the history of the Kingdom is mostly during an exceedingly obscure and dangerous period, the "Second Dark Age," and that the Kings were not able to do a very good job of protecting it from the raids of Vikings from the North, Arabs from the South, and even Magyars from the East. Luxeuil, in the far north of the Kingdom, was actually sacked by both Vikings coming up from the Seine and Arabs coming up the Rhône. On the map, we see that Magyar raids passed close by Luxeuil and might well have joined in the fun. The difference between the Magyars and the others, of course, is that they were on horseback. The raid of 910 had swung down from far in the north of Germany. Although Henry the Fowler defeated the Magyars at Riade in 933, the raids would not stop until Otto the Great inflicted a heavier defeat on them at Lechfeld (or Augsburg) in 955.

While it might sound nice to have been "Conrad the Peaceful" (Conradus Pacificus, Konrad der Friedfertiger), this was really not an era to have been peaceful in, and especially through such a long reign. However, Conrad may have been wiser than contemporaries gave him credit for, since he seems to have arranged for the Magyars to attack the Arabs even while he was arranging for the Arabs to attack the Magyars. He then was able to clear out Arab bases in Provence with his own forces. Also, Conrad at one point received some unexpected help, from Constantinople. The Roman Navy destroyed an Arab pirate fleet off Provence in 941 -- although this was for the benefit of Hugh of Arles, who by this time was King of Italy. This may be the last time that serious power was projected from Romania so far west.

Burgundy was never a strong kingdom, never had a distinct cultural or national identity, and was not much of a player in larger European politics, although geographically it may largely be defined by the Rhône/Saône system and their Eastern tributaries. After the inheritance of the whole by the Emperor Conrad II, the most successful dynasty to come out of the area was the House of Savoy, which went on to unify Italy but, ironically, lose Savoy itself in the process. The role of the House in Italy, while the place of its origin passes to France, bespeaks the liminal or betwixt-and-between place of Burgundy in the histories of France and Italy. Modern nationalism demand a sharp break and boundary, but this is false to the history and to the cultural situation on the ground.

The story of the independence and unification of the Kingdom of Burgundy is a little complicated. The Duchy of Burgundy had been detached, permanently, as part of the Treaty of Ribemont in 880 (or, already, in the Treaty of Verdun, in 843). The Lower Kingdom (or Provence) broke away with a Carolingian in-law, Boso (a son-in-law of the Emperor Louis II), in 879. Boso had trouble maintaining his position, and was not effectively in power for the last five years of his life. His son Louis was not able to secure the Kingdom until 890.

By then, the last unity of the Carolingian domains was lost with the death of the ineffectual Charles the Fat in 888, Upper Burgundy became independent under local nobility, Rudolf of Auxerre, a member of the house of Welf whose cousins continued for centuries as major players in German history.

Boso's son, Louis, ended up involved in Italy (899-905), after King Arnulf of Germany had come and gone. This won him the Imperial crown from the Pope (901) and, according to some sources, a Roman wife, a daughter of the Emperor Leo VI in Constantinople. That was the extent of his good fortune, however. He lost the throne of Italy to one of the local players, Berengar I (a grandson of Louis the Pious), who also blinded him. Living out his years in Burgundy, he was unable to pass the throne to his son; and Lower Burgundy went to a cousin, Hugh of Arles (928). Meanwhile, Rudolf II of Upper Burgundy had entered Italy himself and overthrown Berengar (922), and Hugh had already made his own claim there too (926).

The conflict between Rudolf and Hugh was fixed up amicably enough (933). Hugh kept Italy, Rudolf got Lower Burgundy, and Hugh's son married Rudolf's daughter. Ruldolf, however, seems to have been slow to exert authority over Lower Burgundy, where Hugh's brother Boso ruled as Count of Arles. After Hugh's death, however, Rudolf's son, Conrad, reunited the Kingdom (often called the "Arelate" after the new capital of Arles). Hugh also ended up with a Roman connection, with his daughter Bertha wed to the young Emperor Constantine VII. Hugh's son, King Lothar II of Italy (the Emperor Lothar I had been King Lothar I of Italy), was later overthrown by Berengar II, who, just like the villains of the old silent movie cliff-hangers, tried to force the widowed Queen, Adelaide, into marrying him. To prevent this outrage, the German King Otto I rode to the rescue, killed the villain, married the Queen himself, and then was crowned Emperor by the Pope. They became the ancestors of all the German Emperors until Conrad IV. Adelaide didn't get along with the Greek wife of her son, Otto II, and spent some years with her brother Conrad back in Burgundy. Later (1097), she was Canonized.

Burgundy lost its independence just because of the failure of the male line -- the sort of problem we see in monogamous Europe but not in polygamous Islam or China. Rudolf III's heir became his niece, Gisela, who had married the Emperor Conrad II, who was himself a descendant of Adelaide and Otto I. This put together the classic Holy Roman Empire of the "four crowns," but it also made Burgundy a peripheral concern of its titular ruler. The feudal fragmentation of the Kingdom began to erase its identity, and when parts of it began to be acquired by Aragon and then France, the process started whereby most of it would end up French. The House of Savoy, indeed, ended up with the throne of Italy, but Savoy itself was then lost to France. Only Switzerland and Monaco are today independent fragments of what had been the Kingdom of Burgundy.

There was one salient and distinguishing cultural characteristic about Burgundy. Mostly within its borders was one of the distinctive regions of the French language, consisting of the dialects of Franco-Provençal or Arpitan. These contrasted with the other principal linguistic regions of Mediaeval France, the Langue d'oïl of the North and the Langue d'oc (Lenga d'òc) or Occitan of the South. From the Langue d'oïl(named after the word for "yes" which has become oui) of the North, we get the standard Parisian dialect of Modern French. The Langue d'oc, as "Languedoc," gave its name to a province or even to the whole South, particularly associated with the literary culture of the Provençal dialect and the political culture of the County of Toulouse. The status of the language and the power of Toulouse were broken by the infamous Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229). The Franco-Provençal dialects (where "yes" is ouè) can be distinguished from both the Langue d'oïl and the Langue d'oc. The name "Franco-Provençal" was meant to indicate an intermediate position between French and Provençal but unfortunately tends to have the implication that the language is a form of Provençal. But the usage is now established. On the map we see how the dialect area covers the central lands of Burgundy, including all of Savoy (the Savoyard dialect), the French speaking part of Switzerland (the Romand dialect), much of the Dauphiné and the Franche Comté, and a slice of the Duchy of Burgundy. The areas around Aosta and Susa, originally part of Burgundy and Savoy, and today in Italy, nevertheless retain, to some extent, their Franco-Provençal language. Indeed, Aosta has received autonomous status within Italy, with legal privileges and protections for its language -- Valdôtain. This is unique in the Franco-Provençal area, where the language often has little prestige or recognition.

Mostly, Parisian French has been replacing Franco-Provençal, even in Switzerland. The most prestigious form of Franco-Provençal was the dialect of Lyon (sometimes "Lyons" in English). Lyon is now one of the principal cities of France, but this has provided no leverage for the survival of its Mediaeval language. The political triumph of Parisian French leaves one with the impression that Burgundy, as a Francophone region, properly belongs, of course, to France. However, this is the result rather than the cause. As with the Langue d'oc, what was originally a distinct language has been supressed by the dominance of a government that was based in the North and imposed its language. The loss of the Franco-Provençal language is thus of a piece with the loss of Burgundian identity within the French State. I see that some dialect maps of France put the jurassien language with the Northern dialects rather than with Franco-Provençal. The dialect map of The Romance Languages, edited by Martin Harris and Nigel Vincent [Oxford University Press, 1988, map V, p.481], shows the Jura region within the Franco-Provençal area. Indeed, it shows more of the Franche Comté, all the way up to Alsace, with Franco-Provençal than I see on other maps. Otherwise, the Franche Comté has its own dialect of Langue d'oïl, the franc comtois, as the Duchy of Burgundy also has its own dialect, bourguignon.

As examples of the differences between Franco-Provençal and Parisian French, masculine "the" is lo, singlular, and los, plural, in Franco-Provençal rather than le and les as in French, "cheese" is fromâjo in Franco-Provençal but fromage in French, "brother" is frâre in Franco-Provençal but frère in French, "left hand" is man gôcho in Franco-Provençal but main gauche in French, "woman" in Franco-Provençal is fena but femme in French, and "moon" is lna in Savoyard but lune in French. A characteristic here seems to be that Franco-Provençal has retained clearer final vowels, as in Italian or Spanish, rather than reducing them, ultimately to silence, as in French.

A striking feature of the Kingdom of Burgundy is that it contained all of the highest mountains in Western Europe -- in Francia. They are the peaks of the Pennine Alps, the range south of the Rhône River before it flows into Lake Geneva (the Swiss Canton of Wallis/Valais). The highest point is Mt. Blanc (Monte Blanco in Italian), at 15,771 ft. (4807 meters), now on the border between France and Italy but formerly well within the County (later Duchy) of Savoy. As Mt. Blanc is the highest point in both France and Italy, the highest point in Switzerland is Mt. Rosa, Monte Rosa in Italian (the peak of the Dufourspitze in German), at 15,203 ft. (4634 m), about fifty miles east of Mt. Blanc. The origin of "Rosa" is not what we might expect, but it derives from the Franco-Provençal word rouese, "glacier," which at times has been rendered Bosa, Biosa, or Boso. From the Swiss, German speaking side, the mountain was formerly known as the Gornerhorn.

At Mt. Rosa the eastern boundary of Burgundy would more or less have followed north the present Swiss-Italian border, by the Simplon Pass and around the headwaters of the Rhône. Note that the valley of Aosta was part of Burgundy, and Savoy, though it is now in Italy. Sometimes Mt. Blanc is regarded as separate from the Pennines, although it is contiguous with that range and with no others. This is high country, perhaps not in comparison to the Andes or the Pamirs, but certainly in relation to Colorado or California. (Click on the map for a better resolution popup.) There are at least five other peaks in the Swiss Pennines that are higher than the highest point in the 48 States (Mt. Whitney, 14,494 ft.): the Matterhorn (Mt. Cervino), 14,690 ft., Täschhorn, 14,733 ft., Weisshorn, 14,780 ft., Liskamm (Lyskamm), 14,852 ft., and Dom, 14,913 ft. Around Mt. Blanc are subsidiary peaks that can be counted also. Three of them are higher than Mt. Whitney: Mont Blanc de Courmayeur, 15,577 ft., Pointe Luis-Amadeo, 14,662 ft., and Mont Maudit, 14,649 ft. Mt. Rosa (whose principal peak in Italian is Punta Dufour) also has a subsidiary peak, Punta Ghifetti, 14,941 ft. On the other hand, Liskamm and the Täschhorn can be considered subsidiary peaks of Mt. Rosa and Mt. Dom, respectively. Burgundy also contained the Bernese Alps, north of the Rhône Valley, which rise to 14,026 ft. (4274 m) at the Finsteraarhorn (about the same height as Mt. Langley in the Sierra Nevada) -- though the Jungfrau at 13,642 ft. is more conspicuous from the north.

Apart from the Pennines and Bernese Alps, There are no other 14,000+ ft. peaks in Western Europe. If the Kingdom of Burgundy had survived until today, it could present itself as the Culmen Franciae, the "Roof" or "Summit" of Francia (not the Culmen Europae, since peaks in the Caucasus are the highest in Europe as a whole, albeit at the very edge, between Europe and South-West Asia). Just as noteworthy as the peaks are the passes. The Simplon Pass, at 6592 ft. (2006 m), is at the east end of the Pennines (to the east is the St. Gotthard Pass, near the sources of the Rhine, the Rhône, the Reuss, and the Aare, where a tunnel was completed in 1882 at a cost of 310 lives). My only visit to the area involved a train trip through the Simplon Tunnel, 12.45 miles long, passing from Italy to Switzerland. At the west end of the Pennines is the Little St. Bernard Pass, at 7170 ft. (2188 m). The only real road over the Pennines, even now, is the historic Great St. Bernard Pass, which reaches 8110 ft. (2469 m -- though a tunnel now bypasses the actual summit). The comparison with the Sierra Nevada is interesting. The most famous Sierra pass is Donner Summit, at 7239 ft. This, however, is north of the really high parts of the Sierra. There, the last usable pass before a very long stretch south is Tioga Pass, at 9941 ft., which leaves Yosemite National Park to the east. I have driven across that and the Monitor Pass, at 8314 ft., which is roughly halfway between Yosemite and Lake Tahoe. The higher passes are all, of course, closed in Winter. Keeping Donner Pass open often requires heroic snowplowing. I had long assumed that the St. Bernard passes were named after the illustrious St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), but this is not the case. St. Bernard of Montjoux (c.996-c.1081), a much more obscure figure historically, is the eponym of the passes. A canon in Aosta, this St. Bernard had the care of the Alpine passes and did his job in a vigorous and epic fashion, founding hospices at the very summit of both St. Bernard passes and staffing them with Augustinian monks, who henceforth welcomed and rescued travelers. The familiar St. Bernard dogs were bred by the monks for help in their mountain patrols and rescues. These institutions still exist, though there is now certainly much less need for them. At the east end of the Bernese Alps, at the edge of the Kingdom of Burgundy, there is a knot of high passes that link the watersheds of the Rhine, the Rhône, the Reuss, the Aare, and the Ticino. These may be examined on a popup map linked in the treatment below of Switzerland. The highest of those passes is the Furkapass, at 7,969 ft. (2429 m), which crosses from the headwaters of the Rhône to those of the Reuss.

For a long time the only book I could find for general information on Burgundy, both the Kingdom and the Duchy (also the County of Burgundy and Savoy), with lists, genealogies, and maps, was Phoenix Frustrated, the Lost Kingdom of Burgundy, by Christopher Cope [Constable, London, 1986; Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1987]. The large maps above and below are based on Cope. I could always, of course, have asked for more, but that would be ungrateful for the attention and love that Mr. Cope has devoted to a country that seems to correspond to no natural unit in modern Europe, whose memory is largely eclipsed, and whose very name has drifted elsewhere. A good narrative history of Burgundy, with genealogies, can also be found in The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume III, c.900-c.1024 [Timothy Reuter, editor, Cambridge, 1999, pp.328-345]. Now there is also a detailed Burgundy chapter, "Burgundia: Five, Six or Seven Kingdoms (c.411-1795)" in Vanished Kingdoms, The Rise and Fall of States and Nations, by Norman Davies [Viking, 2011]. Davies is alert to the obscure and protean nature of Burgundian history and, like Cope, also devotes attention to the Franco-Provençal language.

Under Carolingian in-laws, Italy, meaning mainly the North of Lombardy, reestablished a bit of an independent identity that had been lost when Charlemagne conquered the Lombards in 774. This continued to be complicated by the interests of the Popes, who wanted a strong protector but also one who would not desire the Papal enclave itself. A good protector could be honored with Imperial coronation, but a less than faithful one could find someone else called in against him. The Popes were thus best served by external protectors -- too distant to threaten Papal independence, but ready to be called in against local threats. In this era, only one King came in from Germany, Arnulf, but there was then considerable involvement with nearby Burgundy. Crowning the local Italian princes Emperor now looks absurd and pathetic, but the practice does seem to have been abandoned after Berengar I, fighting his way back into power after being on a sidelines for a few years, was crowned in 915. Berengar blinded Louis III of Burgundy. Just when it looked like another Burgundian house (Arles) might make Italy its own, another Berengar (the grandson of the first) took over (950). This time the German King Otto I was called in, to marry the widowed Queen (Adelaide, of Lothair II), and assume the crown of Italy (951-952). Berengar was left, however, with Italy as a fief of Germany. Predictably, he was not very obedient, and Otto returned, newly victorious over the Magyars (955), to dethrone (kill?) Berengar (961) and then be crowned Emperor by the Pope (962).

This ended the independent existence of the Kingdom of Italy, which would not be revived in similar form until Napoleon. Now the German Kings would become the nearly permanent protectors and/or antagonists of the Popes, mainly serving in the long run to inhibit the growth of local power that might threaten Papal independence. This also served to keep Italy split between North and South, with the South continuing to interact more strongly with Romania and Islâm.

The genealogical diagram leaves out the Emperor Arnulf and Rudolf II of Burgundy. Their descent can be examined under the Carolingians and Burgundy, respectively. St. Adelaide, it should be noted, was a daughter of Rudolf II. Since the succession jumps around so much, the Kings of Italy are numbered, next to the green crown, from Berengar I to Berengar II. An anomaly I now find in my sources is that Gisela is listed as a daughter of Lothar I by The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume III, c.900-c.1014 [Timothy Reuter, editor, 1999, p.702]. This contradicts Volume II of the History [Rosamond McKitterick, editor, 1995, p.858], which showed Gisela as the daughter of Louis the Pious. Now I have found confirmation of Gisela as the daughter of Louis the Pious in the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Part 1, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997, p.9]. I had previously gathered that a daughter of Lothar, Rothilde, married Wido of Spoleto, King of Italy, but I now find this contradicted in that volume [p.9] and in Volume II, Part 2, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser II Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa [Second Edition, 1997, p.169], where "Rotrud" is shown married to Lambert II of Nantes, an uncle of Wido.

Italy remained divided until the 19th century, when unification was brought about by Sardinia. The Kingdom of Sardinia, however, was never really, by itself, a Great Power, and Austria and the other possessors of Italian territory could not be defeated without help. After disappointing results from the revolutions of 1848, help came in the form of the French Emperor Napoleon III, who could do the heavy lifting required to defeat the Austrians. This won Milan for the House of Savoy (1859), but at the cost of Savoy itself, and Nice, ceded to France. But now the stage was set for the unification of Italy, which was achieved in 1861. Garibaldi's conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1860) brought the North and South of Italy together for the first time since the invasion of the Lombards in 568 AD. Florence became the capital of a united Italy, as Victor Emanuel II of Sardinia became the first King of an independent Italy since Berengar II in 961 -- exactly 900 years before. The country was not completely unified, however. The Pope still held out in Rome with the protection of the French Army. Napoleon III may even have thought of this as helping to secure the legitimacy of his Imperial crown. Venice also remained in the hands of Austria. The problems of Venice and Rome would both be solved by Prussia. When Bismarck got Austria into a war in 1866, he told the Italians he could get them whatever they wanted. Just as well, since Austria was still able to defeat Italy on land and sea. So Prussia won the war anyway, and Italy got Venice. Then Bismarck got France into a war in 1870. Italy didn't join that one but benefited anyway. Napoleon III had to withdraw from Rome, and the Pope no longer could resist the Kingdom of Italy. Rome became the capital of a united Italy for the first time since perhaps the 3rd century. Italian policy then continued to focus on Italia irredenta, "unredeemed Italy." Thus, although one might think that Corsica would count as the last remaining part of historic Italy to acquire (not to mention Savoy and Nice), and even though Italy was actually an ally of Austria and Germany, it was Austria against which demands were made at the outset of World War I -- namely that any place in the Adriatic that had ever had an Italian name should be turned over. This absurd demand was rejected, and so Italy came in on the side of the Allies. Although again unable to defeat Austria in battle, the Allied victory delivered to Italy the Austrian provinces of Trent and Istria and part of the Tyrol. Much of Istria and some of the Tyrol, however, were not Italian speaking. This impropriety was corrected for Istria after World War II, but Austria was never in a position, as Yugoslavia was, to insist on such a correction. Hitler, indeed, had annexed all of the Austrian cessions after Mussolini was overthrown in 1943, but the postwar settlement restored the pre-war status quo. Otherwise, World War II was a very bad time for Italy to return to the German alliance, and it turned out that Italy wasn't even strong enough to conquer Greece, much less contend as an equal with Germany or Britain. Clearly, it was time to focus on humdrum internal development instead of glorious adventures.

Unfortunately, as ideology had tempted the Italians into a disastrous love of Mussolini in the 20's, Italian development remained hampered by the popularity of communism after World War II. That the country has grown greatly anyway is a tribute, in part, to the ability of Italians to ignore the government and run entire businesses in an underground economy. Because of this, it is hard to know exactly how large the economy is and what the true level of employment is. On the other hand, this does not make for as secure an environment as would be necessary for Italy to reach its true potential. There is also the lingering problem of the cultural differences between North and South, where gangsterism, rather than entrepreneurialism, while troubling the North through its ideological political manifestations (both fascist and communist), troubles the South in the far cruder form of the continuing traditional Mafia. Extortion and blood feuds do not make for a modern economy, much less a liberal society.

Italy's first attempt to acquire colonial possessions netted Eritrea and Somalia (1889) but then encountered an ignominious check when defeated in an attempt to conquer Ethiopia in 1896. The threat to Ethiopia was renewed and conquest effected in 1936, but by then Ethiopia was a member of the League of Nations, which was supposed to prevent such aggression. Italy was then, not just one among many in a general scramble for Africa, as in the earlier era, but a nasty dictatorship waging unprovoked war against an innocent nation.

Prime Ministers of Italy

Count Camillo Bensodi Cavour

1860-1861

Baron Bettino Ricasoli

1861-1862

Urbano Ratazzi

1862

Marco Minghetti

1862-1864

General Alfonso La Marmora

1864-1866

Baron Bettino Ricasoli

1866-1867

Urbano Ratazzi

1867

Federigo Menabrea

1867-1869

Domenico Lanza

1869-1873

Marco Minghetti

1873-1876

Agostino Depretis

1876-1878

Benedetto Cairoli

1878

Agostino Depretis

1878-1879

Benedetto Cairoli

1879-1881

Agostino Depretis

1881-1887

Francesco Crispi

1887-1891

Marquis di Rudini

1891-1892

Giovanni Giolitti

1892-1893

Francesco Crispi

1893-1896

Marquis de Rudini

1896-1898

General Luigi Pelloux

1898-1900

Giuseppe Saracco

1900-1901

Giuseppe Zanardelli

1901-1903

Giovanni Giolitti

1903-1906

Baron Sidney Sonnino

1906

Giovanni Giolitti

1906-1909

Baron Sidney Sonnino

1909-1910

Luigi Luzzatti

1910-1911

Giovanni Giolitti

1911-1914

Antonio Salandra

1914-1916

Paolo Boselli

1916-1917

Vittorio Orlando

1917-1919

Francesco Nitti

1919-1920

Giovanni Giolitti

1920-1921

Ivanoe Bonomi

1921-1922

Luigi Facta

1922

Benito Mussolini

1922-1943

Marshal Pietro Badoglio

1943-1944

Ivanoe Bonomi

1944-1945

Ferruccio Parri

1945

Alcide De Gasperi

1945-1953

Giuseppe Pella

1953-1954

Mario Scelba

1954-1955

Antonio Segni

1955-1957

Adone Zoli

1957-1958

Amintore Fanfani

1958-1959

Antonio Segni

1959-1960

Fernando Tambroni-Armaroli

1960

Amintore Fanfani

1960-1963

Giovanni Leone

1963

Aldo Moro

1963-1968

Giovanni Leone

1968

Mariano Rumor

1968-1970

Emilio Colombo

1970-1972

Giulio Andreotti

1972-1973

Mariano Rumor

1973-1974

Aldo Moro

1974-1976

Giulio Andreotti

1976-1979

Francesco Cossiga

1979-1980

Arnaldo Forlani

1980-1981

Giovanni Spadolini

1981-1982

Amintore Fanfani

1982-1983

Bettino Craxi

1983-1987

Amintore Fanfani

1987

Giovanni Goria

1987-1988

Ciriaco De Mita

1988-1989

Giulio Andreotti

1989-1992

Giuliano Amato

1992-1993

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi

1993-1994

Silvio Berlusconi

1994-1995

Lamberto Dini

1995-1996

Romano Prodi

1996-1998

Massimo D'Alema

1998-2000

Giuliano Amato

2000-2001

Silvio Berlusconi

2001-2006

Romano Prodi

2006-2008

Silvio Berlusconi

2008-2011

Mario Monti

2011-2013

Enrico Letta

2013-2014

Matteo Renzi

2014

The economic sanctions against Italy promoted by Britain and France were ineffective, and the whole business began to define the policy of "appeasement" which was going to give Hitler the chance to rearm Germany to a dangerous level and then to begin World War II on his own terms. After the earlier failure against Ethiopia, Italy had turned to the dismemberment of Turkey. War in 1911 won Libya, and in 1912 the Dodecanese Islands of the Aegean also. The Italians had their hands full just subduing the Libyans. This turned out to be a mixed blessing. When Italy entered World War II, the possession of Libya gave Mussolini an opportunity to invade Egypt and take the Suez Canal. The Italian army, however, was thoroughly defeated and driven entirely out of Cyrenaica. This embarrassment was redeemed by Hitler, who sent some German troups, henceforth the Afrika Korps, with a brilliant commander, Erwin Rommel. This was more than a match for the British, and more than once Rommel looked on the verge of taking Alexandria. The British knew how serious this threat was, but apparently Hitler didn't. North Africa was always a sideshow to him, despite the fact that it was the only place he was actually fighting British ground forces; and resources that would end up wasted in Russia were never diverted to a campaign that could have overturned the strategic balance in the Middle East and gravely affected the course of the War. When the United States entered the War, and then invaded North Africa in November 1942, Rommel was overwhelmed both in Egypt and in his rear. Libya itself ended up abandoned as he retreated into Tunisia, where the final battles of the campaign were fought. Significantly, the Italians fought better under Rommel than they ever had under their own commanders. Meanwhile, Mussolini had tried invading Greece, jumping off from Albania, which he conquered in 1939. Again, this was more than the Italians could handle, and Hitler delayed his invasion of Russia just to conquer Yugoslavia and Greece. This all was strategically a lot less important than North Africa, and it meant that the Germans did not come within sight of Moscow until snow started falling. Thus, Mussolini, through his ill considered attacks, brought Hitler one strategic opportunity, that was not sufficiency exploited, and perhaps fatally compromised Hitler's own (and ill considered) pet operation against Russia. Meanwhile, a British expedition in 1941 returned Haile Sellassie to power in Ethiopia. After the War, Italy was divested of all foreign possessions, except for a brief administration of Somaliland.

The list of pre-World War II Italian Prime Ministers is from An Encyclopedia of World History; Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged, compiled and edited by William L. Langer [Houghton, Mifflin, Company; the Riverside Press, Boston, 1940, 1948, 1952, 1960; pp. 1242-1243] and of post-World War II Prime Ministers from www.polisci.com (which now seems to have vacated its domain).

Of interest about the list of Prime Ministers is that the brief tenure so familiar in post-War Ministries has been consistently the case ever since the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. Few Prime Ministers have ever served more than a couple of years. The great exception, of course, was Benito Mussolini, who styled himself il Duce, "the Leader," but who constitutionally was never more than Prime Minister. This formally and de jure subordinate position later led Italians to blame the King for tolerating the dictatorship. Tolerate it the King may have done, but it is not clear just what he was expected to do if he had not. King Constantine of Greece was blamed for the Greek dictatorship even thought he supported an attempted coup against it and had to flee the country.

After the loss of Sicily to the Allies, Mussolini was overthrown and the new government immediately offered to surrender to the Allies. The scepticism and dithering of the Allies gave the Germans the opportunity to occupy most of Italy and restore Mussolini as dictator in the North. The Germans, however, now treated the Italians as enemies rather than true allies, and many Italians who had fought with the Germans in North Africa and Sicily now actually found themselves in German prison camps (cf. the Lina Wertmüller movie, Seven Beauties, 1976). The Italian surrender, however, did mean a continuity of government, unlike the later complete abolition of the government in Germany under the Allied Occupation. Mussolini himself met a grisly end, summarily tried and shot by partisans, then hung up by the heals in Milan. His granddaughter Alessandra, interestingly, has become active in Italian politics.

Presidents of Italy; Quirinal Palace official residence of the President of Italy, 1946

Enrico de Nicola

1946-1948

Luigi Einaudi

1948-1955

Giovanni Gronchi

1955-1962

Antonio Segni

1962-1964

Giuseppe Saragat

1964-1971

Giovanni Leone

1971-1978

Alessandro Pertini

1978-1985

Francesco Cossiga

1985-1992

Giovanni Spadolini

1992

Oscar Luigi Scalfaro

1992-1999

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi

1999-2006

Giorgio Napolitano

2006-present

The post-War power of the Communist Party in Italian politics, together with the instability of the governments and the volatility of Italian politics in general, with periods of terrorist violence and kidnappings (like the kidnapping and then actual murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978), not to mention the grim reign of the Mafia in Sicily, has been a continuing source of concern for both all Italians and the Western Allies. The geopolitical danger of the Communists has passed, but their evil influence continues, and there really seems to be no more in the way of stability and consensus in Italian politics than there ever has been. Some regions, like Venice, are beginning to talk about independence. After the tenure of a former Communist, Massimo d'Alema, in 2001 Italians voted back in colorful millionaire Silvio Berlusconi. As the Left in Italian politics reminds us of Communism, the Right reminds us of Fascism. Berlusconi was betrayed by Rightist allies in his first tenure as Prime Minister, and they actually lost power in the 2001 election. It was possible that Berlusconi would even push Liberal, free market policies, to the distress of the leftist governments in most of the European Union; but both the future and the man were very unpredictable. Italian Prime Ministers have typically failed to serve more than a year or two, but Berlusconi, serving five, seemed to spend most of his time staying out of jail. Just what Berlusconi was up against, besides himself, was evident after April 16, 2002, when an apparently effective general strike was staged in Italy, all to protest government moves to make it easier to fire workers. A sort of instinctive, idiotic socialism is thus revealed, despite years of experience and evidence all over Europe that the harder it is for businesses to fire workers, the more reluctant they are to hire them, or to create new jobs, giving countries with such forms of "workers' rights" persistent double-digit unemployment. This is not just an Italian problem, but the strike displays its popular basis there.

"We should be conscious of the superiority of our civilization, which consists of a value system that has given people widespread prosperity in those countries that embrace it, and guarantees respect for human rights and religion. This respect certainly does not exist in the Islamic countries."

Silvio Berlusconi,27 September 2001

Berlusconi's finest moment may have been a statement he made, quoted at right, after the attack on America on 9/11/01, asserting the superiority of Western civilization in comparison to the present state of Islamic countries. This assertion of the plain truth was regarded as outrageous, however, both by the self-hating European Left and by those in the Islâmic world either self-deceived on the issue of its backwardness or infected with the poison of Islâmic Fascism (which had led to the attack itself). Berlusconi apologized, apparently for his ethno-centrism, but there is no good reason why he should have. Meanwhile, Berlusconi managed to get a law passed protecting him from judicial inquiry into his shady or corrupt business practices. This did not exactly strengthen his reputation, though it may have helped him stay in office. By late 2004 he had the longest serving Italian Government since World War II. Whether he accomplished anything substantial in reforming the economy is the question. His legal troubles ended up dominating the program of the government. In 2006, he was turned out, by a thin margin, but then returned in 2008. Afterwards, his agenda again mainly has seemed to consist of protecting himself from legal trouble, with little energy left over for constructive reforms. Quite the opposite. Italy is one of the "PIIGS," whose welfare spending has now placed it, with Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, in the sovereign debt crisis of the Euro zone. With all this going on, including a (marvelously titilating) sex scandal, it is remarkable that Berlusconi has stayed in office, although, perhaps the most like a gangster of anyone since Mussolini, that is precisely the trick.

Berlusconi's luck finally ran out in 2011. Surviving no-confidence votes, he nevertheless resigned because of the continuing sovereign debt crisis involving the PIIGS. In 2011, this has now resulted in new governments in all the PIIGS countries, with changes of leadership in Greece, Italy, and Spain all within a month. Whether this will really make any difference remains to be seen. The temptation to raise taxes rather than cut spending or reform labor law and business regulation is politically viable on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, it is still possible to deceive the voters enough to make the privileges and undue influence of public employee unions acceptable, even though they represent an interest totally adverse to the citizens and supportive of the otherwise unpopular Big Government. The situation can only be worse given the political culture of Europe.

While Mussolini's ambition was really to recreate the Roman Empire, it has often been noted that modern Italians seem to have little of the stoicism, discipline, and ferocity of the Romans. They seem, indeed, rather more like the Etruscans, as we know them from their tombs -- enjoying life, prizing decorative style, and, in general, just more excitable. Italy is now distinguished for art, architecture, music, food, and fashion, but also for the irrational vendetta, the Mafia, and even just for loud, demonstrative arguments. Why things should have come out this way, and Italian cultural habits developed the way they did, is a good question. As it happened, the Italians ended up as the most sensible members of the Axis. By 1943, when the cause was obviously lost, Mussolini was overthrown and surrender tendered, while the Germans and Japanese fought on until their countries were devastated. Most of the damage to Italy proper resulted from German resistance to the Allies, after the Italian surrender. Indeed, Mussolini himself had seemed a responsible enough person that politically naive Americans, like Ezra Pound, were enamoured of both him and his regime. Mussolini, who had originally been hostile to Hitler's annexation of Austria, was done in by his opportunism, stabbing France in the back after Hitler was clearly the winner in 1940. Hitler's genuine admiration for the founder of Fascism then temped Mussolini away from his own better nature, such as it was. With nothing whatever against the Jews, indeed at one time a bit of a Zionist, Mussolini eventually went along with Hitler's plans and allowed Italian Jews to be rounded up -- mainly after the German occupation, when Mussolini had almost no leverage against German wishes (as memorably seen in the movie, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, 1971). He ended up paying a terrible price, as did all Italians -- not to mention Italian Jews -- though, as it happened, to the credit of Italians again, about 85% of Italian Jews were sheltered from the Nazis.

At first the most successful of the Frankish successor states, it claimed the same Imperial prize as Charlemagne did. This began to divert Frankish identity into Roman, even while the kingdom itself was clearly the least Roman part of Charlemagne's empire. This came to seem increasingly odd as the Monarchy declined and control of Italy faded. But not until the Emperor Maximilian I was a formal claim made to Germania as the kingdom that had been East Francia -- though popularly the term Dudesche Ryke (Deutsche Reich in modern German) had been used as early as the 13th century. Meanwhile, by independent action, German settlement and conquest pushed east. Eastern German states, Brandenburg (later Prussia) and Austria, later became the nuclei for modern Great Powers, but they did not come together quickly enough to stop the march of France into Lorraine -- though they succeeded in denying her Belgium. When Prussia (or, more like it, Otto von Bismarck) did create around itself a reunified Germany, minus Austria, it had alone become more powerful than France and retrieved Alsace and part of Lorraine. As German power waxed, however, it became too belligerent, made too many enemies (especially Britain), and finally brought down even distant America against it -- twice. The great Wars this involved, stretching from 1914 to 1945, I've called the "German Upheaval," on analogy with the surge of French power after the Revolution and under Napoleon. At least to superficial inspection, however, the German upheaval had far more horrible and dramatic effects, the deaths of millions upon millions of people, both soldiers and civilians, including deliberate attempts at genocide, the shattering of Empires, and the passing into and out of existence of small nations. No Congress of Vienna ever tried to put the old pieces back together again. Indeed, the post World War II gathering corresponding to Vienna may have been the Nuremberg War Crime Trials, in which Germany's repudiation of all the standards of civilization and justice was exposed to examination. Napoleon committed his crimes, but he had no ideology of murder, as did Hitler. All this cost Germany, not just reputation, but previous territorial gains, not only against France, but even much in the East that dated to the Middle Ages. German unity itself was lost for 45 years in the ideological division between Free and Communist. Now, however, Germany is again the strongest state in Europe, with a European Union coalescing around it. While this is not supposed to be a German project, many fear that Germany is very likely to end up as the senior partner in the business, however carefully arrangements are made to prevent it. Which Germany would it be? That of Goethe, or of Goebbels?

FRANCONIAN KING

Conrad I of Franconia

911-918

When Louis the Child died in 911, the Eastern Carolingian line came to a neat end. There were still Carolingians around who could have succeeded, but the German Princes elected one of their own instead. This already was a portent for the future. The affirmation of the elective principle, athough something that might have been overcome later, wasn't; and we already have the seed of a Monarchy that ultimately would not be able to maintain even the unity of the state, much less organize its resources for the projection of external power. At the time, the defection of Lorraine on behalf of Carolingian legitimacy was not a good sign.

SAXON KINGS& EMPERORS

Henry Ithe Fowler

918-936

defeats Magyars at Riade, 933

Otto Ithe Great

936-973;King of Italy,951;Emperor,962

defeats Magyars at Lechfield, 955; Embassy of Liutprand of Cremona to Nicephorus Phocas, 968; Embassy of Liutprand to John Tzimisces, arranges marriage of Otto II to Theophano Scleraena, 971

The weak start of East Francia, however, seemed to be soon remedied. Henry I and Otto I asserted Royal authority over the great nobles and gained great prestige, as well as an experienced fighting force, by defeating the Magyars, who had been raiding deep into Francia for years. This was one of the tribulations of the Second Dark Age, with Magyars (a Uralic steppe people) attacking from the East by horse and Vikings and Arabs from the North and South, respectively, by boat. Henry first defeated the Magyars at Riade in 933; and then Otto did so again, decisively, at Lechfield in 955. The Magyars soon settled down as the Christian Kingdom of Hungary. Meanwhile, Charles the Simple of West Francia had granted what became Normandy to the Viking Rollo in 911.

Otto was strong enough to interfere in Italy, attaching its affairs to Germany for centuries, and to receive the Imperial Crown from the Pope. Thus, Otto created the classic Mediaeval Empire, whose very identity is a lesson in confusion and retrospection. The easiest thing is to call it "Germany," but that was not done at the time. The Kingdom was East Francia, and the Empire was the Roman Empire, both of which now sound confusing. More confusing, the Kingdom was soon called that of the Romans, as a way for the Kings to expess their claim on the Empire even before being crowned by the Pope, without which they were not legally Emperors. This is discussed more thoroughly below, but it is convenient to resolve that the Kingdom is what became Germany. The Empire is also conveniently called, retroactively, the "Holy Roman Empire" (Sacrum Imperium Romanum), though it was in practice, as the Germans themselves later thought, Germany also (claims to Italy and Burgundy were formally surrendered in 1648).

What was going to be the continuing problem for this new Empire was just money. Without much in the way of trade, cities, or industry, there just wasn't any. Without money there could be no paid army or paid administrators. For military force the Kings were thus dependant on feudal loyalty, which was rarely entirely reliable and depended on the personality of individual rulers. For administration, however, the Kings could long use the Church, educated and self-supporting, until the Popes decided that the Church should be independent. Thus, feudalism came rather later to Germany than it did to France, but when it did come, it was with a thoroughness that made it all the more difficult for the monarchy to recover. Even worse, where the male line of Capetians never failed in France (where even the last Kings, of the House of Orléans, were still direct male heirs of Hugh Capet), Germany was periodically left without a male heir. This preserved the elective principle of the Throne where, in the Middle Ages, nothing was easier than that any office or holding should become hereditary, as it did in France, as long as there was an obvious hereditary candidate. The shift from the Saxons to the Salians and then to the Hohenstaufen was bad enough, but the end of the Hohenstaufen left the country without leadership altogether. The elective principle became permanent, even after the effective hereditary succession of the Hapsburgs. This rendered Germany as a whole ungovernable, as it would remain until 1871.

The Salian Emperors (from, as Dukes of Franconia, the "Salian" Franks) probably stood the best chance of maintaining Germany as a coherent and stable Kingdom, with a chance to progress easily to modernity. The domain attained its classic form when Conrad II inherited the Kingdom of Burgundy, rounding off the "four crowns" of the Emperor. However, the use of the Church, with its literate clergy, as an arm of the government introduced a fatal flaw. The Popes wanted an independent Church, which they fought for in the Investiture Controversy of 1076-1122. An excommunicated Emperor Henry IV, standing penitently barefoot in the snow outside the Tuscan castle at Canossa, is one of the most striking images of the Middle Ages. To the Germans this would later be one of the most humiliating events in their history. Actually, Henry was forcing the Pope's hand, since the Pope could not refuse a penitent. But the excommunication had legitimized rebellion in Germany. This, indeed, would be the pattern for many years, the Pope seeking allies in the rear of the Emperors, and it would end up gravely damaging the future of Germany. The country would enter modern times fragmented and backward. In the early 19th century this would often appear comical and harmless, but by the end of the century the country would finally reachieve unity in the most politically threatening and ominous way.

Henry V achieved what looked like a favorable compromise to the Controversy, but the damage had been done and the precedents set. The Imperial grip in both Germany and Italy had been loosened, many concerns neglected, and the Popes knew what they could do to preserve their independence and powers, however little they were able to maintain themselves sometimes even against the people of the city of Rome. The spirit of resistance in both Germany and Italy was heartened; the German Church began to exercise even its own territorial sovereignty (with independent states, like that of the Archbishop of Salzburg, that persisted until Napoleon); and subsequent history would be a steadily losing battle for the Monarchy. Just as bad, the lapse again of the male line perpetuated the elective principle of the Throne, which never became truly hereditary, as it had in France (in truth, nothing was easier in the Middle Ages than for things to become hereditary, if only obvious heirs existed). The elections then became a drain on the finances and even the powers of the Emperors, since sovereign concessions as well as money could be used to buy votes.

The Hohenstaufen (or Staufer), initially Dukes of Swabia, were the last chance to preserve a strong German Monarchy. The successes of the great Frederick Barbarossa ("Red Beard") in Germany (the defeat of Henry the Lion, the Welf Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, in 1180), however, were largely negated by the failure of his efforts in Italy. Times were changing, and northern Italian cities, developing a post-Mediaeval commercial culture, were becoming individually wealthy and powerful. Combined, as the Lombard League, their resources could easily contend with those of the whole of Germany. They defeated the Emperor at the Battle of Legnano in 1176. Since Henry the Lion had arrogantly refused any help to Frederick, he could be declared in default of his feudal obligations and, since he had made other enemies in Germany, Frederick was able to turn much of the country against him. This did not necessarily add to the strength of the Monarchy, but it did remove the greatest center of resistance to it. Unfortunately, not much was then done to pursue this advantage. Frederick went on the Third Crusade and died crossing a river in Asia Minor (1190). This remote death spawned the legend that Frederick had not died, but returned to sleep under the Kyffhäuser Mountains in Germany. In 1945 a desperate and delusional Adolf Hitler assured Germans that Frederick would awaken to deliver the country from the Allies. Frederick seems to have known better.

An Imperial Party, however, existed even in Italy, deriving its name, Ghibelline from the Waiblingen castle of the Hohenstaufen. The Papal Party, in turn, got its name Guelf, from the Welf house of Germany. When a Welf candidate, Otto of Brunswick (son of Henry the Lion), finally was elected Emperor, however, the Popes were not much better pleased at his pursuit of Imperial interests. This, however, paled beside the position of the next Hohenstaufen, Frederick II, who inherited the domain of the Popes' erstwhile allies, the Normans of Naples and Sicily. Frederick all but abandoned the position of the Throne in Germany, in order to take advantage of his powerful southern Kingdom. This worked well enough in his lifetime, but writing off Germany was of no benefit at all, and the southern Kingdom, eventually in the hands of his bastard son Manfred, was the target of every device that the Popes could bring to bear. Before long that meant Charles of Anjou, whose French invasion extinguished the house of Hohenstaufen.

The crown of Lombardy, or Italy, involved no Italian institutions or effective power and was assumed perfunctorily with the Imperial crown; so it is not indicated after Otto I acquired it through his marriage to the Italian heiress Adelaide, who had been imprisoned after her husband, Lothar II of Italy, had been murdered by Berengar II of Ivrea. Of potentially greater value was the crown of Burgundy, claimed by Conrad II by inheritance in 1032. The Kingdom, however, was off the beaten track and was neglected by the Emperors. Only four were ever actually crowned in Arles, ending with Charles IV in 1365. The other two, besides Conrad II himself, were Henry III and Frederick I, both indicated in the chart with the numbered Burgundian crown. Burgundy soon was largely in the hands of France, with Savoy and Switzerland heading for independence, though this was not formally recognized until 1648.

A fifth crown, obtained by Henry VI through marriage to Constance, daughter of Roger II of Naples and Sicily (the Regnum), was a great strategic coup. The Popes had been cultivating the Normans in southern Italy and Sicily as a counterweight to the Emperors, but now the Emperors would have that very power. The real center of the rule of Frederick II, the Stupor Mundi, "Wonder of the World," became Palermo. Unfortunately, this meant neglect of Germany, where power flowed easily to local princes, and it persuaded the Popes that the Hohenstaufen must be destroyed at all costs. Eventually, Charles of Anjou was recruited and killed Frederick's son Manfred and grandson Conradin. Charles' triumph was brief, however, as one of the most dramatic events of the Middle Ages, the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers (1282), tore Sicily from his grasp. Peter III of Aragón, who had married Manfred's daughter Constance, jumped in and was offered the crown of Sicily. There was little the Pope, let alone non-existent Emperors, could do about this. Naples and Sicily, never formally part of the Empire, now passed back into the dynamic of Mediterranean politics. An Emperor, Charles V, returned later only because both Sicily and Naples passed to him from his Aragonese inheritance.

The crowns of the Emperors, usually thought of as just the first three, were the subject of considerable symbolic discussion. The Sachsenspiegel (Saxon Mirror), a legal text of 1230, described them this way:

Dy erste ist tho Aken: dar kronet men mit der Yseren Krone, so is he Konig over alle Dudesche Ryke. Dy andere tho Meylan, de is Sulvern, so is he Here der Walen. Dy drüdde is tho Rome; dy is guilden, so is he Keyser over alle dy Werlt.

This is quoted by James Bryce [The Holy Roman Empire, 1904, Schocken Books, 1961, p.194], who doesn't bother to give a translation. Perhaps he thought everyone has on hand a dictionary for 13th century Low German. The charm of the passage, however, is that it sounds just enough like English to make it look like a parody of modern German. Of interest here is that the first crown is already said to be of the "Dudesche Ryke," i.e. the German Reich (here clearly "kingdom" or "realm," not "Empire") -- "Aken" is Aachen, the capital of Charlemagne. Italy is called "Wales" (Walen), for the same reason, being non-Germanic, as the word is used in Britain. Milan (Meylan), in Lombardy, was one of the places for the Lombard/Italian coronation. "Here" is Herr, originally "Lord," in Modern German. Although the German crown is said to be iron and the Milanese silver, this was sometimes reversed, and the latter was typically called the "Iron Crown of Lombardy" in any case because it was supposed to contain a Nail from the True Cross. The Roman crown (gold) conferred rule of "alle dy Werlt." Unmentioned here, Burgundy was widely recognized as providing a "fourth crown"; but the Regnum of Naples and Sicily, although in effect providing a fifth crown for Henry VI, Frederick II, and Conrad IV, was not an Imperial possession long enough for this to become a traditional claim.

Philip of Swabia, son of Frederick Barbarossa, who contended with Otto of Brunswick for the Empire, had no sons; but the marriages of his four daughters are among the most interesting in European history. In a reconciliation of their feud, his oldest daughter, Beatrice, married Otto himself. But they had no children. The younger daughters, Kunigunde, Marie, and Elizabeth, married King Wenceslas I of Bohemia, Duke Henry III of Lower Lorraine and Brabant, and King & St. Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon, respectively. All of these marriages produced children with living descendants, especially among the Hapsburgs and the royal families of Spain, as can be traced at the linked genealogies. This is all of particular interest because of Philip's wife, Irene, who was a daughter of the Roman Emperor Isaac II Angelus. Isaac, a disastrous Emperor, himself was a great-grandson of the outstanding Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, the restorer of Romania after the Turkish invasion. This means that a large part of modern European royalty have been descendants of the Comneni. My impression is that Roman (Byzantine) Imperial descent for recent royalty has often been claimed through the Macedonians, but the only genuine line seems to be from Macedonian in-laws. On the other hand, descent from the Comneni appears to be well attested and with multiple lines, all from Irene Angelina.

Eventually the Electors got back in action. Not long after the death of Conrad IV they had actually elected an Emperor, in fact two of them, both conveniently foreign and distant, Richard of Cornwall, brother of King Henry III of England, and King Alfonso X of Castille. There seems to have been a great deal in the way of bribery and divided electors. Richard took this seriously enough to try, hopelessly, to make a go of it. My information about Alfonso is conflicting. Either he knew better and simply stayed home to enjoy his new dignity, or his determination was distracted by domestic problems -- civil war in 1275 and rebellion by his son, Sancho, in 1282. But even Richard should not have bothered. Rather than have Germany collapse in anarchy, a serious election and a serious candidate were finally, after 19 years, forthcoming. The fateful election of Rudolf of Hapsburg resulted. Despised by the fierce Ghibelline, Dante Alighieri, for exclusively pursuing the interests of his family and ignoring Italy altogether, Rudolf in fact did all that could be done at the time to retrieve the position of the German Monarchy. This meant promoting his family, first of all by obtaining the Duchy of Austria, henceforth absolutely identified with the Hapsburgs, but of course such a strategy eventually was vindicated by history, when the Hapsburgs became all but hereditary Emperors and had organized enough of a domain for themselves to be a Great Power, even if much of Germany was no more than nominally under their authority. Dante would have been thrilled beyond words with Charles V, even though his power experienced frustrating limitations. For the time being, the Hapsburgs benefited from no hereditary principle, and the German Electors were suspicious enough of any revived authority of the Throne to alternate lines for a while.

With the Elective principle of the German Monarchy now firmly established, Charles IV, through the Golden Bull, at least rendered the process regular and comprehensible. Seven Electors were specified, four secular and three ecclesiastical. As noted below, the Duke of Bavaria would eventually be added as an Elector (1623), initially as a replacement for the Prince Palatinate (1621-1648), who had been in rebellion at the beginning of the Thirty Years War. The Duke of Hanover would be made an Elector (1692), right in the middle of the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697).

Without having any real effect on the history of the Empire, Napoleon added the Margrave of Baden, the Duke of Württemberg, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and the Archbishop of Salzburg, all as Electors in 1803. In the same year, however, the original eccelesiastical Electorates, Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, were all annexed by France. The Archbhishop of Salzburg was actually Ferdinand III, Duke of Tuscany, who had lost his realm in one of Napoleon's rearrangements. He would get rearranged again, as Napoleon removed him from Salzburg and installed him as Elector of Würzburg in 1806. Adding the Electorates was apparently in preparation for Napoleon being elected Holy Roman Empire, but then Napoleon simply crowned himself Emperor of the French and abolished the Empire in 1806. The Elector of Hesse-Cassel rather liked his new title and so kept it even after the end of the Empire. Ferdinand of Tuscany become Grand Duke of Würzburg until restored to Tuscany in 1814.

During this period we see the rise of the Swiss. The "Forest Cantons" of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden united (1291) against the expansion of the Hapsburgs (remembered in legends like that of William Tell) and soon were able to defeat them (1315). This may have seemed like a fluke, but then the Duke Leopold III was actually killed at the Battle of Sempach (1386). What was going on? It was, indeed, the greatest triumph in history of "a well regulated Militia," and the proof of infantry with a new weapon, the pike, against the Mediaeval levy of cavalry. This created a sensation, and for more than a century Swiss mercenaries were considered essential for any serious army. Swiss arms reached their peak of influence on European history when a Swiss army defeated and killed Charles the Bold of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy (1477). This turned to the benefit of Charles' son-in-law, Maximilian of Hapsburg, who obtained most of the Burgundian lands and in short order (1499) accepted Swiss autonomy. The prestige of Swiss arms reached a check when the Swiss were defeated by Francis I of France at Marignano in 1515. It was then agreed that the Swiss would henceforth only fight with France; but then Francis and the Swiss were defeated at Biocca in 1522. The Swiss decided not to fight for anyone. Since then, Switzerland has avoided external conflicts and has maintained its independence (recognized in 1648) and neutrality against all except Revolutionary France (1798-1815). The neutral policy of Switzerland has made it the headquarters over the years of various international organizations, such as the International Red Cross, the League of Nations, and certain United Nations agencies. The old reputation of the Swiss in battle, however, lingers in the symbolic "Swiss Guard" of the Popes. Since Switzerland has four official languages (German, French, Italian, and Raeto-Romansch), its name is often given in Latin, as the Confoederatio Helvetica (C.H.), from the local pre-Roman Celtic tribe of the Helvetii.

Switzerland west of the Reuss River encompasses most of what remains independent of the Kingdom of Burgundy (other parts of which may be found in Monaco and a couple regions in Italy). It also encompasses most of the Culmen Franciae and the sources of the watershed of much of the Core of Francia. The Swiss rivers, lakes, principal mountain passes may be examined in a popup map. Lake Lucerne, or the Vierwaldstätter See, "Four Forest States Lake," is called that in German because it is surrounded by the original Three Forest Cantons of 1291, plus the City of Lucerne, which was the next Canton to join the Swiss Confederation. The Three Cantons alone defeated the Hapsburgs in 1315, but there were already eight Cantons by the Battle of Sempach in 1386. Some areas were actually conqured by the Swiss, like the Aargau in 1415, others were long time allies, such as Geneva, which freed itself from Savoy in 1526.

The principal rivals of the Hapsburgs turned out to be the house of Luxemburg. It was the Luxemburg Emperor Charles IV who regularized the system of Election, and then his son Sigismund who revived the role of no less than Constantine in calling a general Church Council to end the Great Schism. All this came to naught, however, with the failure of the male line. The heiress of Luxemburg, Elizabeth of Hungary, then married a Hapsburg. That line of Hapsburgs also died out but, yes, there were others.

The election of Frederick III, who became the last Emperor crowned at Rome by the Pope, put the Hapsburgs in virtual hereditary possession of the title, with but one exception, for the rest of its history. The marriages then contracted for Maximilian and his heirs, with Burgundy, Spain, and Hungary, made the Hapsburgs for long the preeminant ruling family of all of Europe, turning Vienna into one of the great cities of history and one of the great centers in the history of philosophy.

As noted, Maximilian was the first Emperor to call himself Rex Germaniae, "King of Germany." We also now get the interesting characterization of the Empire as the Sacrum Imperium Romanum Nationis Teutonicae, the "Holy Roman Empire of the Teutonic [i.e. German] Nation." These expressions, so full of portent for the future, are nevertheless ironic and misdirected for Maximilian, who moved the Hapsburg Court to the Low Countries -- the inheritance of his wife, Mary of Burgundy. This inaugurated a period in which the Empire was more of a European institution than it had been in several centuries, with Emperors (Charles V, Ferdinand I) whose first language was not even German. The Court of Maximilian, living off the commercial wealth of Flanders, was a center of Renaissance culture. Machiavelli did not think much of Maximilian's qualities as a ruler, but then the fruit of the actions of someone he thought of as a much better ruler, Ferdinand II of Aragón, ended up in Hapsburg hands thanks to the marriages arranged by Maximilian. This great accomplishment by dynastic marriages led to a clever poem:

With his vast inheritance, Charles, the last Emperor crowned by the Pope (in Bologna [1530], to avoid the awkward reminder that his Spanish army had recently sacked Rome [1527]), had to contend with France, with the Protestant Reformation, and with the Turks. The first he handled pretty well, even capturing King Francis I in battle at one point (1525), but did less well with the second, irritated that he had to mess with it at all, since he wanted the religious issues settled at a general Church Council (which became the Counter-Reformation Council of Trent, 1545-1563). As Emperor, he could have called his own Council, like Constantine or Sigismund, but he deferred to the Pope, who only wanted a Council to argue orthodoxy and defend the Church against heresy, not reconcile Protestants. Charles defeated the Protestant League of Schmalkalden at the Battle of Mülhberg in 1547, but then suffered a surprise attack in the Tyrol by his own erstwhile (Protestant) ally, Maurice of Saxony in 1552. The Treaty of Passau restored the Protestant position in Germany, and then in the end Charles conceded, in the Peace of Augsburg (1555), that German princes could establish whatever Church they wanted (well, either Lutheran or Catholic, at first), on the famous principle cuius regio, eius religio, "of whom the realm, of him the religion."

Here we see a great portrait, by Titian (d.1576) from 1548, of Charles V, the most powerful Emperor since Charlemagne, and the first, as well as the last, with vast Imperial possessions beyond Europe. He is showing some evidence of the large lower "Hapsburg Lip." Otherwise, his short hair and beard are characteristic of the 16th century -- long hair and goatees or Vandykes would take over in the 17th century.

Although Charles died in Spain and is thought of as German, he grew up in the Low Countries. His facility with the languages of his various possessions is commemorated in an interesting quote attributed to him, "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse" (Je parle espagnol à Dieu, italien aux femmes, français aux hommes, et allemand à mon cheval). German doesn't seem to come out too well in this. While one might suppose that Charles learned some Dutch (now called "Flemish" in Belgium) in his childhood, and indeed he is often known as "Charles of Ghent" or the Kezer Karel in Flemish, the first language of the Court was probably French. Nevertheless, the books that Charles is supposed to have kept by his bedside, besides the Bible (in Latin?), were The Courtier [1528], by Baldassare Castiglione, and The Prince [1532], by Niccolò Machiavelli. Both of these were in Italian -- Il Cortegiano and Il Principe, respectively. Presumably Charles was not discussing courtly manners and politics just with women.

When Charles became King of Spain in 1516, he moved to Spain and founded his own capital, the hitherto unimportant town of Madrid, the meaning of whose very (Arabic) name (, Majrît.) is uncertain. This place had little to recommend it, except that it was centrally located. And Charles thought it would be healthy. Others weren't even sure about that, saying that it had "nine months of winter, three of hell." It began as an Omayyad fortress in the 9th century, overlooking the Manzanares River, to guard approaches to the Tagus (Tajo) valley, which contained the original Visigothic capital of Spain, Toledo. Madrid was then made the permanent capital of Spain by Philip II in 1561. Meanwhile, Charles's brother Ferdinand had grown up in Spain, with a Spanish name. His eponymous grandfather, Ferdinand II of Aragón (V of Spain), toyed with the idea of leaving Aragón independently to Ferdinand, which was in his power to do. But his dislike of foreigners (Hapsburgs) ruling Spain was not as strong as his desire to preserve the unity and power of the country. Since Charles was now in charge in Spain (although his insane mother Juana, the last of the Trastámarans, remained the nominal sovereign until her death in 1555), he sent off Ferdinand to take over the German Hapsburg possessions (i.e. Austria). Although Charles got Ferdinand crowned King of the Romans, making him Heir Apparent to the Empire, he may not have intended for Ferdinand to detach the German domains from the Spanish; but this is what happened, in part because Charles was unable pay much attention to Austria and its dependencies and also because the Germans wanted (the Spanish speaking) Ferdinand and not some foreigner(!). Also, Ferdinand, with claims to Bohemia and Hungary from his wife, Anna of Hungary, liked what he had.

Charles's third problem turned out to be a fiasco, since the Ottomans actually conquered most of Hungary (1526). This got the Hungarian and Bohemian inheritance, after some hard fighting, for Ferdinand, who had to withstand the epic siege of Vienna in 1529. Vienna thus stood as the high water mark for the Turks, as it had been centuries earlier for the Mongols (1242). But the Ottomans were at the time far too powerful to be really defeated or chased back whence they came. This would be an unsolved problem for some time -- more than a century and a half.

Charles' power, although considerable, turned out to be less effective than one might think, since his great inheritance was of many constitutionally independent realms, each with its own history, its own laws, its own local parliaments, and its own local tax systems. This made organizing a uniform and unified power a nightmare -- a problem that would persist all the days of the Hapsburgs, right down to the "dual monarchy" of Austria and Hungary. There were even limitations on the vast stream of silver that soon poured in from Mexico and Peru, since the Spanish economy literally was not large enough to absorb it, and a raging inflation resulted. Even so, Charles still had to borrow. This broke the Fuggers banking house when Spain defaulted on its debts in 1557. Wearied by all this, Charles retired, one of the few historic monarchs, and perhaps the first Emperor since Diocletian, to do so.

Since Charles was ruling when Mexico was conquered in 1521 and Peru in 1533, we might wonder what curiosity he might have had about these new civilizations, unknown to either the Ancient or Mediaeval worlds. It looks like he had none. When he was shown a great engraved golden plate from Mexico, he instructed that such things simply be melted down and not shown to him. Today this seems a shocking callousness and criminal vandalism. But at the time, nothing the Aztecs or Incas had to offer would have seemed like anything less than works of the Devil. In the same spirit Aztec priests, red with the blood of human sacrifice, were slaughtered, and Aztec and Mayancodices (bound books) were burned. The loss to history is appalling and incalculable, however unlikely it was that people of the era would have had a disinterested curiosity or respect for such things.

Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna, 1683;
Conquest of Hungary, 1686-1697;
War of the League of Augsburg(Nine Years War), 1688-1697;
Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736),
supreme commander of Imperial Armies, 1697;
War of the Spanish Succession, 1701-1713;

With the Spanish inheritance left to his son Philip II, Charles also wanted him to receive the Imperial title and German lands. But neither the German Electors nor Ferdinand liked this; and Ferdinand did become Emperor as well as retaining Austria and its dependencies. The subsequent period continues the Golden Age of Spain, as the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs worked together for their own interests and for those of the cause of Catholicism. The struggle with Protestantism, which for Spain mainly meant dealing with the revolt in the Netherlands, and then war with England, for Austrians came to mean the devastating Thirty Years War (1618-1648). This began with the marvelously named "Defenestration of Prague" in 1618. That meant throwing Austrian tax collectors out of windows. The Hapsburg response to enforce their authority became an opportunistic effort to suppress the heterodox religious practices that had been tolerated in Bohemia. The Bohemians called in Frederick V of the Palatinate to be their new King, but Frederick was defeated so quickly (1619-1620) that he came to be called the "Winter King." German Protestants did not do well in supporting the Bohemians. Imperial forces were led by able and flamboyant figures like Albrecht von Wallenstein (d.1634) and were on the verge of defeating the German Protestants more than once; but Imperial ambitions were checked first by the entry of Sweden, with her gifted warrior King, Gustavus Adolphus, and then by the cynical intervention of France, which thought that defeating the Hapsburgs was more important than defending Catholicism.

When the French defeated the Spanish Army at Rocroi in 1643, it was, at the least, the symbolic end of Spanish hegemony and the beginning of French predominance in Europe. I sometimes see comments, and have repeated them myself, that the Spanish tercios were broken at Rocroi, when actually they held against both French artillery and cavalry and were allowed to leave the field with their flags and weapons. But the battle did mark the maturity of the French Army and the end of Spanish supremacy. For Austria, it then became a matter of holding off France, especially once Louis XIV began his wars. This was eventually effected in alliance with England, in the course of the War of the League of Augsburg (or Nine Years War, 1688-1697) and the great War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713). This was at the cost of the Spanish Hapsburg line; but the failed second siege of Vienna in 1683, directed in support of France, resulted in Hungary being liberated from the Ottomans and thus rebounded with new power, possessions, and prestige for the Hapsburgs, whose domain now grew into the "Danubian" Monarchy.

A nasty surprise subsequently came from Prussia. With so much of Germany outside effective control of the Throne, it was inevitable that a rival should arise. At first, it looked like this would be Bavaria, which went over to the French in the War of the Spanish Succession (until smashed by the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy), and then which briefly obtained the Imperial Crown in the War of the Austrian Succession. But when Frederick II fell on Silesia in 1740, starting the War of the Austrian Succession, on the (Machiavellian) pretext of disputing the female succession of Maria Theresa to Austrian possessions, it became clear who the real rival would be. It was because of Prussian arms that the Imperial election was subverted, with Charles VII of Bavaria becoming the only non-Hapsburg Emperor after Sigismund of Luxemburg -- later, a new Imperial Germany would be the creation of Prussia. After retrieving the situation only at the cost of Silesia, Maria Theresa effected an epic "revolution in alliances," trading Britain for France, to surround Prussia with enemies -- including Russia & Sweden. The resulting Seven Years War (1756-1763) was a near thing for Frederick the Great of Prussia, but it did not defeat him. What it damaged the most was France, which lost its colonial empire and its solvency -- the seed of the French Revolution. The last years of the Empire then left the Emperors uncomfortably sharing Great Power status with a Kingdom, Prussia, that was formally a vassal. But soon enough, the old system was swept away by Napoleon, and the Hapsburgs would reduce their pretensions to the possessions of Austria.

The contempt and derision of historians for the Austro-Hungarian Empire is often palpable. The multi-national, polyglot personal domain of the Hapsburgs -- "despotism tempered by inefficiency" -- came to seem so anachronistic, unnatural, and absurd in the 20th Century that its continuation so long is taken as an offense against every rational criterion of history. This attitude began before the demise of the Empire, since its "Royal and Imperial" (Königlich Kaiserlich) abbreviation, K.K. ("Ka Ka" in German), began to be used as a term for absurdity both in and outside the Empire. This then gets confused with kâkâ in Hawaiian, which can mean "excrement," though this is glossed by Pukui and Elbert as "a euphemism, taught to children" [Mary Kawena Pukui & Samuel H. Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary, Hawaiian-English, English-Hawaiian, University of Hawaii Press, 1973, "kâkâ," pp.109-110].

The breakup of the Empire after World War I, however, led to consequences, down to the present, that hardly seem a vindication of the alternative political arrangements that followed. Instead, one might remember Tallyrand's remark that if Austria didn't exist, we would have to invent it. The messiness of states based on ethnicity or language, in an area of great mixtures and interpenetrations of ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities, has produced a record of conflict whose rationality is in no way evidently superior to the personal union of the communities under the venerable Hapsburgs. And while the Empire may be thought of as tottering, weak, and vulnerable because of its defeat by Prussia in 1866 and its collapse after World War I, a case can also be made that, although it was not a first rate power, it really wasn't all that weak. Thus, although quickly defeated by Prussia in 1866, Austria had no difficulty fighting a second front and inflicting decisive defeats, on land and sea, against Italy.

One of those 1866 victories was the most important naval battle that occurred between Trafalgar in 1805 and Tsushima in 1905: the Battle of Lissa, which was the first fleet action between armored and steam driven warships. The climax of the battle came when the Austrian flagship, the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max, rammed and sank the Italian flagship Re d'Italia.

It was the general expectation that the introduction of armor and steam had restored the ancient tactics of oar driven ships. Battleships thus commonly came to be built with rams. Although these proved to be more difficult to use than expected, the climax of Lissa demonstrated the seriousness of the weapon, as earlier the ramming of United States ships by the Confederate ironclad Virginia had also. Nevertheless, like Austria itself, the value of Lissa has subsequently been discounted. Since there weren't any more fleet actions until the Sino-Japanese (1894-1895) and Russo-Japanese (1904-1905) Wars, no real use of the weapon or its tactics could be made. Instead, the ram proved more of a danger to its friends, as in 1893 the British battleship Victoria was sunk in a collision with the Camperdown while on a routine maneuver. When the next fleet action occurred, the development of slow burning powder, long barrels, and long ranges for naval guns in the meantime enabled battles like Tsushima to be decided long before the ships came anywhere near actual contact: The Russians opened fire at 18 kilometers and the Japanese at 14. Although this has nothing to do with the guns available in 1866, Lissa nevertheless gets belittled as somehow, anachronistically, involving the wrong tactics. No one, indeed, would ever expect the Austrian navy to have gotten it right. That the Austrians were later the first to introduce the self-propelled torpedo, ushering in a whole new dimension of naval warfare, is then conveniently forgotten.

Austria-Hungary had only one colonial possession. This was grandly named Franz Josef Land, but its value seems commensurable with all the other absurdities customarily associated with the Dual Monarchy. For Franz Josef Land, as it happens, was a group of Arctic islands almost entirely above 80 degrees latitude, at the northern end of the Barents Sea, beyond Norwegian Spitsbergen and the long Russian island of Novaya Zemlya. This is about the same latitude as the northern end of Greenland and cannot have offered any advantages to its owner, unless as an advanced base for Arctic exploration. Merely surviving the winter would be a challenge for anyone staying there. After the breakup of the Austrian state, Franz Josef Land fell to the Soviet Union, and now to Russia.

Post-Hapsburg Austria flirted with union with Germany. Why not? It was only the rivalry with Prussia that kept Austria out of the original unification of Germany. The Allies of World War I, however, did not want such an addition to defeated Germany, so the union was forbidden. Later, when union (Anschluß) was engineered by Hitler in 1938, the Allies were stuck in their dithering Appeasement mentality and were now prepared to complacently accept an addition to Germany's power that was dangerous in a way that it was not in 1919. Ironically, perhaps the most serious and worrisome opposition to Hitler came from Benito Mussolini in Italy. In one of his moments of prudence, Mussolini had mixed feelings about a revived Germany sharing a border with Italy. Nevertheless, Hitler got away with it, and Austria has been trying to figure out ever since just how popular the new regime was. Were Austrians victims like the Czechs, or had they mostly just become "good Germans"? This question rose in particularly acute form in relation to what should have been a high point for post-War Austria: An Austrian diplomat, Kurt Waldheim, was made Secretary-General of the United Nations. Well thought of at the time, when Waldheim later ran for President of Austria, suddenly there were old pictures of him in a German uniform, possibly mixed up in some German war crimes. He perhaps had been less than forthcoming about what he had been doing in the War. Since many people in Europe, including those in occupied countries like France and the Netherlands, would just as soon forget what they may or may not have been doing, even after 50 years have passed, there may have been many willing to overlook Waldheim's youth. Nevertheless, one term as Austrian President seemed like enough. Now, with xenophobic, anti-foreign forces on the rise in Germany and Austria, and the movement strong enough in Austria to participate in the Government, the question arises again about the precedents for the kind of state or kind of society that Austria wants to be. When the reflex in Europe is still to disparage liberal individualism, the darker versions of collectivism, both nationalist and socialist, are still very menacing.

Slovenia was historically long part of Austria, occupying the provinces of Carniola and Istria on the map above. That is why it is shown here as part of the Core of Francia, rather than with Catholic Eastern Europe. With the breakup of the Empire in 1918, Slovenia joined Yugoslavia. That was the situation, except for German occupation during World War II, until 1991, when Slovenia became the first constituent Republic to leave Yugoslavia. Despite all the war and terror that followed, as other Republics left, Slovenia was largely insulated from the action, since the only border Slovenia shared in Yugoslavia was with Croatia. One might wonder how economically viable the tiny country can really be (with a population of less than two million), but other small states do quite well (e.g. Luxembourg), and in fact Slovenia has the highest per capita income of any of the former Yugoslavian Republics. Indeed, Slovenia has the highest per capita income of any Balkan country, including Hungary, outside of Greece. If it wants to join any other federation, that is likely to be the European Union -- as it has done in 2004.

HOHENZOLLERN EMPERORS,
of German "Second Reich,"only non-Catholic Emperors in Francia

World War I, 1914-1918; abdication of Kaiser,loss of Alsace-Lorraine, West Prussia, etc., 1918

Prussia, which became a Great Power as the nemesis of Austria, eventually came to dominate post-Napoleonic Germany. Under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, Prussia defeated Austria (1866) and France (1871) and then created a new unified Germany, without Austria, as a new German Empire, a "Second Reich."

After unification, Germany swiftly grew into the strongest state on the Continent. Although Bismarck wasn't enthusiastic, a modest colonial Empire was even assembled. Unfortunately, peace and prosperity evidently weren't good enough. A dream of crushing France again, apparently just for the hell of it, and something little short of envy against Britain, which had been an ally of Prussia since 1756, began to poison German policy and preparations. Ironically, much of this began to flow from an Emperor who was actually the grandson of Queen Victoria, Wilhelm II. His father, Frederick III, who had married Victoria's eldest child, also Victoria, had all the liberal instincts of this English connection. Tragically, cancer took him after less than a calendar year on the Throne, and Wilhelm had no sympathy with British ways, except that he wanted a navy as big as his grandmother's. This ill considered aspiration soon turned a traditional ally into a bitter rival in one of the greatest arms races in history, driving the British into the arms of their own traditional enemies, France and Russia. When the ball dropped, over some damn thing in the Balkans (as Bismarck had predicted), the Germans declared war on Russia and so, logically, attacked France, dragging a reluctant Britain into the war by invading Belgium (to get at France), violating guarantees of neutrality that had been in force since 1830.

This pointless exercise brought on the, until then, worst war in history, with more than a million dead each in France, Germany, Russia, and Austria, and nearly a million each in Britain and Turkey. For the first time ever, the United States became an active belligerent in a European war, throwing its weight decisively against Germany -- something that would be done all over again twenty-four years later. Both winners and losers, except the United States and Japan, were all but destroyed. Russia collapsed into anarchy and then totalitarian terror for decades, Britain was hurt, staggered, and bankrupted as never before, and Austria disintegrated into a confusion of petty states. All this (very nearly) just so that the Kaiser could have boats like grandmother. Sadly, all the folly and horror of the war were merely a preview of what the 20th century had to offer. And the damn things are still going on in the Balkans.

The most conspicuous difference between Vienna and Versailles is the treatment of the defeated Power. France was restored to Louis XVIII with the full sovereignty and territory that it had had under Louis XVI -- in fact more, since Avignon was not returned to the Papacy. This made perfect sense. Louis XVIII was not responsible for what France had done under the Republic and the Empire, and it would not have helped his legitimacy or popularity to have been restored under punitive conditions. By the same token, the Germany that was represented at Versailles was no longer the one that had started and waged World War I. The Kaiser had abdicated, a Republic declared, and a parliamentary government sent representatives to the Allies. This was supposedly what Woodrow Wilson wanted out of the War: the triumph of democracy.

Unfortunately, France, Italy, and Britain wanted revenge and spoils. The peace would be punitive, and the Weimar Republic would suffer in legitimacy and popularity because of it -- providing more than enough ammunition of grievance for people like Adolf Hitler to discredit democracy and the Peace. Where Louis XVIII was respected, helped, and protected, the new Sovereign People of Germany would not be. Indeed, the representatives of German democracy were not even allowed to attend at Versailles, and the Treaty was subsequently presented to them, in the words of people like Hitler, as a Diktat whose rejection would precipitate a renewal of the War. How different from Vienna, where France was represented by the brilliant Talleyrand. Although the victorious Powers of 1814 did indeed contemplate marginalizing the French representative, in short order Talleyrand maneuvered himself into full participation. I doubt that the Germans of 1919 had a diplomat available of the genius of Talleyrand (who had survived and served all of the regimes since Louis XVI), but even a lesser man might have talked some sense into the Allies, or at least awakened Wilson to the spirit of his own promises.

Germany was deprived of territory through plebicites, but there was no appeal to popular will in the territories taken by France, Italy, or Britain. The sizes of the German Army and Navy were severely limited, with the Army forbidden tanks and aircraft, and the Navy forbidden ships larger than 10,000 tons. Louis XVIII labored under no such curtailment of his sovereignty. And Germany faced massive reparations. This reciprocated the reparations imposed by Prussia on France in 1871, but, of course, nothing of the sort had been expected of France in 1815. The reparations led the German government to a massive inflation of the currency, which broke the economy, wiped out the savings of the middle classes, and created the conditions that, with the addition of the Great Depression, produced a level of misery that popularized the previously insignificant Nazis. Ironically, much of the reparations ended up being paid with loans from the United States.

The approach at Versailles proved to involve a high order of folly. This was not unappreciated at the time. John Maynard Keynes, later an influential economist, called the Treaty a "Carthaginian" peace ("The Economic Consequences of the Peace," 1919) -- like the treaties imposed by Rome on Carthage, before her complete destruction. Keynes may not have known that German commanders were already speaking of a "Second Punic War," hoping, like Hannibal, to avenge the defeat of the First. Curiously, although later a staunch foe of Appeasement, Winston Churchill agreed with the assessment of Keynes. The terrible War that began with the folly of Austrian diplomacy thus ended with the folly of Allied diplomacy.

Having helped discredit democracy in Germany, the Allies then compounded the problem by choosing an Appeasement policy with Hitler. The British, especially, were having second thoughts about the justice of Versailles, and in conjunction with a popular Pacifist movement, this led to one folly being heaped upon the other.

"...one should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for war is not avoided thereby but merely deferred to one's own disadvantage.."

Adolf Hitler was not the person to whom full German sovereignty should have been restored. He was no longer the representative of a democracy, but of a terrible, hostile, and aggressive ideology -- whose character was only recognized by unpopular politicians like Churchill -- who, in an extraordinary 1933 meeting, found himself in agreement with no less than the otherwise pacifistic Albert Einstein.

As it happened, Hitler, although finally losing as did Hannibal in the original Second Punic War, would prove to be a far more terrible enemy and would inflict an unprecedented level of suffering, destruction, and carnage on Europe and her peoples -- thanks in great measure to the advantages he enjoyed from the fecklessness of the Allies. The only consistent feature in Allied policy from Vienna to Versailles was, perhaps, a deference to autocrats, Louis XVIII and Hitler, in comparison to democratic representatives, who were cut off at the knees.

The Germans had often behaved badly under the Kaiser, but this was the merest foretaste of what would aptly be called the "crimes against humanity" of World War II. The taste for revenge of the Allies in World War I would thus rebound upon them with unimaginable ferocity. They had little taste for it after World War II, though by then they realized that they wanted a democratic Germany as an ally against the remaining, and triumphant, totalitarian power, the Soviet Union. Truncated by Russian conquest, the Federal Republic of Germany nevertheless emerged as a sovereign and equal Power in the modern world.

The Iron Cross -- -- came to be used to symbolize, not only the German Empire, but every single regime in modern Germany since then -- the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, and the Federal Republic of Germany -- with sole exception of Communist East Germany. There actually had not been much call for such a symbol before the introduction of aircraft. Armies and navies had always used flags for recognition, as with the Imperial German Naval Ensign at right. A flag, however, is not going to work very well on an aircraft, and during World War I we see the introduction of special insignia painted on wings and fuselage. Considering the radical changes in regime, from Empire, to Republic, to Dictatorship, to Republic again, the Iron Cross represents an extraordinary constant in Germany identity despite all the other changes in symbolism. As it happens, however, the Iron Cross has nothing to do with the earlier history of Germany in general. It was inherited by the Margravate of Brandenburg, as the Kingdom of Prussia, from the Duchy of Prussia, which itself derived from the domain of the Teutonic Knights. With the Knights, the Cross was simply the standard Cross of a Crusader, and the black on white colors were just a variation of those used by other Crusading Orders. For instance, the Hospitallers used white on red, , or white on black, . There was no particular symbolism in the choice of colors for the Teutonic Knights. The only symbolism it would ever have, a particularly unfortunate one, would be for the Nazis with death. This has now been conveniently, and not inappropriately, forgotten.

While France's more conventional Second Empire followed her particular Great Dictator, history switched things around on Germany. The regime that had overthrown Napoleon III foundered on its own foolish adventure in the uncharted realm of 20th century warfare. The bitterness of German defeat and the willingness of the Germans to accept dictatorship, since they had never known real democracy [note] and widely disparaged the Liberal, capitalist society of Britain (as do modern leftists and many conservatives), made it possible for Hitler to revolutionize a fundamentally conservative country, which had never fully accepted the legitimacy of the Weimar Republic. Unlike Napoleon, Hitler did not ride the whirlwind of the preexisting Revolution, he created his own whirlwind -- though most Germans probably did not quite have this in mind when they acquiesced to the Nazi regime: There were no celebrations when World War II started in 1939 as there had been in 1914.

When Hitler came to power, Albert Einstein was visiting for a semester (for the third time) at the California Institute of Technology. He had already arranged to take up a position at the new Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, but did return to Europe that summer. Hearing that the Nazis had already searched his residences, including his beloved summer house, Einstein never returned to Germany. His holiday, largely in the Netherlands, included a quiet visit to Winston Churchill in England. Churchill, who almost alone knew what Hitler was all about, was out of the government and out of favor at the time as some kind of warmonger. Yet, Einstein, a life long pacifist, agreed with Churchill's assessment and suspended his pacifism for the duration. I don't know if Einstein and Churchill ever met again. It must have been an extraordinary moment.

It is noteworthy that Hitler's outright territorial annexations to Germany in the west were relatively modest, just Alsace and Lorraine from France, as in 1871. He did not have the racial animus against his western enemies that he did against the eastern -- it is there, where Germans were supposed to find their Lebensraum (after enslaving or sweeping away the Slavic or Jewish Untermenschen who were there already), that the boundaries display the same degree of rearrangement conspicuous in Revolutionary Europe and that Germany assumes the same kind of bloated and unnatural outline as Napoleonic France. In a way, Hitler's heart just really wasn't in the project of subduing England. His restless ambition in the East is then what brought him down. He couldn't wait to invade Russia, but then ran into many of the same problems as Napoleon. Like Plato's classic case of the "tyrannical" personality, neither Hitler nor Napoleon had the patience to limit their goals and limit their risks. Stalin, in the end, did, and so became the most successful of all such dictators, despite the very same hatred of democracy and Liberal society.

On this 1942 map of the "high water mark" of Nazi Germany, several points of strategic failure are noteworthy. While Napoleon could not have invaded England without naval control of the English Channel for a few days, Hitler, with no strategic navy, could have accomplished the same job with air power. The air Blitz against England came close to doing this, by attacking Royal Air Force bases and the radar sites that directed British aircraft. However, a British bombing raid on Berlin infuriated Hitler. He redirected attacks to London and civilian targets. Although spectacular, this was strategically ineffective, and spared the military means that the British had to preclude German air superiority. Without such superiority, an invasion could not be attempted. So Hitler turned on Russia. Meanwhile, he regarded the only place where there was ground combat with British forces, in North Africa, as a sideshow. Deep in Egypt, within hailing distance of Alexandria and the Suez Canal, Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox," if he had had only a tithe of the forces in the Balkans, could have taken the heart out of British Imperial communications and put the whole Middle East, with its strategic oil reserves, into the hands of pro-Nazi Arabs. Instead, Rommel's own communications could not be secured, as the German airborne forces that could have taken Malta were ruined in a Pyrrhic victory on Crete. Substantial German forces were only committed to North Africa after the Americans landed in Morocco and Algeria in November 1942. With Rommel already in retreat, the result was simply the surrender of another German Army (May 1943). Meanwhile, Stalingrad (16 September 1942 to 2 February 1943) had really broken the ability of Germany to mount any other large or effective offensives. Despite the undoubted importance of Stalingrad, where 250,000 Germans had been trapped and killed or captured, it should be remembered that a good 350,000 Germans and Italians had been killed or captured in North Africa. Rommel himself is one of the more intriguing characters of the War. He made a name in the brilliant campaigns of 1940 and secured military immortality in North Africa; but he then was ineffective against the Allied landings in Normandy in 1944. Suspected of involvement in plots against Hitler, Rommel was allowed to commit suicide and then celebrated as a great hero of the Third Reich. In the end, he symbolizes the questionable moral commitments and futile genius of the professional German military.

If the Western Allies had lost their taste for revenge in 1945, quite the opposite would be the case in the East. If Keynes had been concerned about a "Carthaginian Peace," and if the German Army wanted a "Second Punic War," what Germany got from the Russians in the East was a Third Punic War and a genuinely Carthaginian "Peace," i.e. the Russians actually treated East Prussia and Königsberg the way the Romans had treated Carthage. That is how Whittaker Chambers saw it in 1952, when he referred to "the Carthaginian mangling of Europe" [Witness, Regnery, p.332]. Königsberg was largely destroyed, the population was deported or annihilated (perhaps 100,000 civilians were "disappeared"), Prussia was divided with Poland, and Russian colonists were brought in to give birth to a generation that often was not even told in the schools that where they lived used to be part of Germany (and had never been part of Russia). To be sure, this is no less than what the Nazis wanted to do to Russia; so if our moral principle is collective guilt and an eye-for-an-eye retribution, the Germans got what they deserved. However, if the Soviet Union was doing what the Nazis wanted to do just because that is the way they operated anyway, and we reject the collective guilt of the German citizens of East Prussia -- not to mention the other lands in Eastern Europe from which ethnic Germans were expelled or disappeared -- then World War II ended as it began, with the war crimes of two, not one, ruthless and totalitarian powers.

The Soviets were not even following their own ideology, since they did not distinguish between German capitalist warmongers and the innocent German proletariat. All Germans were blamed; all German women were raped; and so what it looked like was not good Marxist class enemies, but precisely the sort of race enemies already infamous from Nazi ideology. It was not a German class liquidated East of the Oder; it was the German people liquidated East of the Oder; and this only made sense in terms of the pan-Slavic ambitions that had already been expressed by Tsarist Russia in 1914, with practices that were already infamously associated with Russian Cossack cavalry. In short order, the democracies realized that the Soviet Union was simply picking up again the practice of the tyrannies in which it had been happy to cooperate with the Germans until June 1941.

And it was not only Germans who experienced Soviet terror in 1945. In the Baltic states, Poland, and elsewhere a police state apparatus shut down the restoration of pre-War governments. The Soviets deported many populations as well as those of Germans, both to create "realities" to match the post-war borders drawn by Stalin, and to punish populations, like the Crimean Tartars and Chechens, believed to have cooperated with the Germans. Poland, an active Ally whose partition by Germany and Russia began the War, and whose citizens had fought heroically in Allied armies and air forces throughout, was left to the merciless process of transformation into a Soviet puppet state. That the democracies more or less acquiesced to Soviet domination in Poland rendered the casus belli of 1939 and the whole moral content of Allied war aims vacuous. To rescue Poland from murderous German Nazis, it was betrayed to murderous Russian Communists -- even as Soviet and Marxist propaganda undermined the confidence of the democracies in their own principles, a process that, long after the fall of the Soviet Union, continues to corrupt and undermine the political, economic, intellectual, and moral health of the West. In other words, Leninism is alive and well in American universities; and American Communists who spied for the Soviet Union and betrayed, not just their country, but humanity and civilization, are celebrated as heroes and martyrs.

FederalRepublic

Presidents

Chancellors

Theodor Heuss

1949-1959

Konrad Adenauer

1949-1963

Heinrich Lübke

1959-1969

Ludwig Erhard

1963-1966

Kurt GeorgKiesinger

1966-1969

GustavHeinemann

1969-1974

Willy Brandt

1969-1974

Walter Scheel

1974-1979

Helmut Schmidt

1974-1982

Karl Carstens

1979-1984

Helmut Kohl

1982-1998

Richard vonWeizsäcker

1984-1994

Roman Herzog

1994-1999

Gerhard Schröder

1998-2005

Johannes Rau

1999-2004

Horst Köhler

2004-2010

Angela Merkel

2005-present

Christian Wulff

2010-2012

Angela Merkel

2005-present

Horst Seehofer

2012

Joachim Gauck

2012-present

The Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, BRD) tried to pick up where the Weimar Republic had left off, with about half of the territory of Weimar Germany, a shattered economy, blasted cities, and a starving, humiliated, and (one hopes) shamed population. Recovery was slow at first, until in June 1948 Ludwig Erhard removed wage and price controls, against the advice of nearly all, including the Occupation authorities, and the economy began to take off. Erhard would follow Konrad Adenauer, the father of modern Germany, as Chancellor in 1963. Germany soon rebuilt itself into the strongest economy in Europe, again. Meanwhile, East Germans,
in the Communist "German Democratic Republic" (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR), had been fleeing to the West, until the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. Once East Germany then settled down, it became the strongest economy in Eastern Europe. The level of success there led to it being called das kleine Wunder ("the little wonder") for many years. A "wonder" it may have been in Communist terms, but it was a miserable place indeed, with many buildings still showing the scars of World War II, and the prosperity of West Berlin visible right across the Wall. The whole business began to collapse in 1989 when East Germans discovered that they could vacation in Hungary but then simply walk across the border into Austria, without the Hungarians trying anymore to enforce the prison discipline of Eastern Europe. Almost before the World knew it, the East German government had collapsed and the reunification of Germany had been voted. The Federal Republic was now the entire country.

Unfortunately, the flexibility that had enabled the German economy to recover from World War II was now gone, and the East Germans themselves, never part of the industrial heartland of Germany, had lost such drive and entrepreneurialism as they might ever have had. The East German economy grew very slowly indeed, dragging down a West Germany that was already stagnating under the burden of Welfare State costs and the stupefying power of the labor unions. Unhappiness with all this in 1998 tempted the Germans, like the Americans, British, and French to turn further Left, asking for more of the policies that were causing the stasis in the first place. The Fall of Communism thus really wised up few voters. Meanwhile, the "temporary" capital of Bonn was abandoned and Berlin restored as the capital of Germany, with the Reichstag, which lay abandoned since burning down under Hilter, rebuilt with modern architecture amid the old building. This may have been inevitable, but it seems like a bad sign. The poor economy has gravely stimulated protectionistic, nativistic, xenophobic, and even racist sentiments, especially in the East. An economically troubled socialist government, opposed by violent young racists, sounds rather too much like the situation in Germany in the early 1930's for comfort [note]. What is missing in contemporary Germany and France both is an appreciation for classical liberalism -- i.e. free markets as well as social tolerance. It is noteworthy that "liberalism" (or "neo-liberalism") is a bad word in nearly all fashionable ideology, whether derived from Hegel, Nietzsche, or Marx. Napoleon's contempt for Britain as a "nation of shopkeepers" continues today in countries that could stand a great deal more shopkeepers; but the French and Germans know that the "Anglo-Saxon" model of liberalism is what contradicts their stupefying socialist institutions. They resent and envy it even as they feel a moral superiority for their own circumstances, however awkward for them those are. Since nearly every evil of the 20th century resulted from a rejection of liberalism, this all reflects a continuing unwillingness to learn from history that is astounding in its obstinacy and folly.

As of 2012, Germany is in a curious positon. Angela Merkel has indeed effectively been reforming the economy, with good growth and unemployment down to 5.5% -- much better than the United States, which has regressed and stalled under the Welfare State and Keynesian tax-and-spend ideology of the Democrats elected in 2008 -- people who think that the older, stagnant Germany, or perhaps France, was a success to be copied. Curiously enough, reform in Germany had begun under Gerhard Schroeder, who, although perhaps elected for more socialism, did the opposite, even cutting back the power of the unions and reducing the time allowed for unemployment benefits -- a strategy successful elsewhere, such as in Denmark, but politically taboo in the United States. This even cost Mr. Schroeder his office, but with the ironic benefit of the election going to Merkel. The success of Germany is not lost on the new Prime Ministers of Italy, Mario Monti, and Spain, Mariano Rajoy.

At the same time, the success of Germany has saddled it with the European debt crisis, the responsibility for which has mainly fallen on Germany and France, which want to both guard against the collapse of Euro and protect their banks from the bad debt of the PIIGS -- Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. It looks like Ireland will have the least trouble recovering from the credit collapse set off by the mortgage bubble in the United States; and the leadership, and even the electorate, of Italy, Spain, and Portugal now look like they are ready for supply-side reforms of their economies. Germany, after all, has now obviously led the way in the emulation of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Greece may be another matter. The best strategy for the rest of Europe may be to let Greece become a "failed state," i.e. let it default, leave the Euro zone, and inflate its way out of its overpriced system of government. But Greece, although a headache, does not have a large enough economy -- about the size of Boston -- to seriously burden the rest of Europe. Without much effort, the EU can keep bailing out Greece for a while, in that hope it will sober up to real reform, before giving up and cutting it loose.

Another recent correspondent (April 2002) has informed me that the German economy is not in such bad shape and that conflict with immigrants is not a problem. Well, the German Federal Statistical Office shows national unemployment in February 2002 as 10.4%. Unemployment in the former East Germany is 19.2% and in the former West Germany 8.3%. These numbers are up from last year, since there has been a recession, and are slightly higher than in January 2001 (10.0%, 18.7%, and 8.0% respectively). The former East has thus been suffering depression levels of unemployment. There is going to be dissatisfaction and trouble over that, whether it is with immigrants or not. But even the original area of the Federal Republic has the typical Euro-socialist levels of high unemployment. When American unemployment was 6% in the middle of 1930, Herbert Hoover thought that drastic action was needed (so he drove it up to 18%). But now in European terms even 8% is looking good. Since it has been more than a decade since the reunification of Germany, something is clearly not working in East Germany. A decade after World War II, West Germany had very nearly rebuilt its industry and infrastructure, despite being bombed back to the Stone Age during the War. But the wisdom that removed price controls to allow Germany growth then has now been forgotten. Indeed, for six years, Germany has had one of the lowest growth rates in Europe (where the average annual European Union growth since 1995 has only been 2.6%), and there are actually laws prohibiting companies from cutting prices without government permission. Some are willing to eat the fines and cut prices anyway, but the insanity of such rules almost defies belief -- though it does sound like the miserable Nehruist "Licence Raj" regime that India has finally been trying to get rid off. Comparison with discredited Indian economics is something that should really trouble Germans.

After the reelection of Mr. Schröder late in 2002, he backed away from promises of labor and other economic reform. It was a "bait and switch" election, which has disillusioned many with the Social Democrats. The Economist [November 30th - December 6th, p.45] says, "only the unions seem happy," with slow growth, high unemployment, and high taxes. Indeed, a union leader, Michael Sommer, is quoted as saying, "The government is on the right path. Germany is now on the way to being modernised in a socially just way." The only way this makes any sense is if Mr. Sommer is looking forward to ever more socialism, if not sovietism. This is the "modernisation" that a rent-seeking labor movement looks for. Some have even begun to call Germany the "Sick Man of Europe" -- a term originally applied to the Ottoman Empire, and just over 20 years ago to pre-Thatcherite Britain.

In 2005 a more conservative government, with an implicit promise of reform, was elected, headed by Angela Merkel. While the German economy seems to be doing better (as of 2007), it is not clear how far reforms have, or are likely to have, gone.